| About the beginning of the year 1653 I returned to Swarthmore, and going
to a meeting at Gleaston, a professor challenged to dispute with me. I went
to the house where he was, and called him to come forth; but the Lord's
power was over him, so that he durst not meddle.
I departed thence, visited the meetings of Friends in Lancashire, and came
back to Swarthmore. Great openings I had from the Lord, not only of divine
and spiritual matters, but also of outward things relating to the civil
government.
Being one day in Swarthmore Hall, when Judge Fell and Justice Benson were
talking of the news, and of the Parliament then sitting (called the Long
Parliament), I was moved to tell them that before that day two weeks the
Parliament should be broken up, and the Speaker plucked out of his chair.
That day two weeks Justice Benson told Judge Fell that now he saw George
was a true prophet; for Oliver had broken up the Parliament.
About this time I was in a fast for about ten days, my spirit being greatly
exercised on Truth's behalf: for James Milner and Richard Myer went out
into imaginations, and a company followed them. This James Milner and some
of his company had true openings at the first; but getting up into pride
and exaltation of spirit, they ran out from Truth. I was sent for to them,
and was moved of the Lord to go and show them their outgoings. They were
brought to see their folly, and condemned it; and came into the way of Truth
again.
After some time I went to a meeting at Arnside, where was Richard Myer,
who had been long lame of one of his arms. I was moved of the Lord to say
unto him amongst all the people, "Stand up upon thy legs," for
he was sitting down. And he stood up, and stretched out his arm that had
been lame a long time, and said, "Be it known unto you, all people,
that this day I am healed." Yet his parents could hardly believe it;
but after the meeting was done, they had him aside, took off his doublet,
and then saw it was true.
He came soon after to Swarthmore meeting, and there declared how the Lord
had healed him. Yet after this the Lord commanded him to go to York with
a message from Him, which he disobeyed; and the Lord struck him again, so
that he died about three-quarters of a year after.
Now were great threatenings given forth in Cumberland that if ever I came
there they would take away my life. When I heard it I was drawn to go into
Cumberland; and went to Miles Wennington's, in the same parish from which
those threatenings came: but they had not power to touch me.
On a First-day I went into the steeple-house at Bootle; and when the priest
had done, I began to speak. But the people were exceeding rude, and struck
and beat me in the yard; one gave me a very great blow over my wrist, so
that the people thought he had broken my hand to pieces. The constable was
very desirous to keep the peace, and would have set some of them that struck
me by the heels, if I would have given way to it. After my service amongst
them was over, I went to Joseph Nicholson's house, and the constable went
a little way with us, to keep off the rude multitude.
In the afternoon I went again. The priest had got to help him another priest,
that came from London, and was highly accounted of. Before I went into the
steeple-house, I sat a little upon the cross, and Friends with me; but the
Friends were moved to go into the steeple-house, and I went in after them.
The London priest was preaching. He gathered up all the Scriptures he could
think of that spoke of false prophets, and antichrists, and deceivers, and
threw them upon us; but when he had done I recollected all those Scriptures,
and brought them back upon himself. Then the people fell upon me in a rude
manner; but the constable charged them to keep the peace, and so made them
quiet again. Then the priest began to rage, and said I must not speak there.
I told him he had his hour-glass, by which he had preached; and he having
done, the time was free for me, as well as for him, for he was but a stranger
there himself.
So I opened the Scriptures to them, and let them see that those Scriptures
that spoke of the false prophets, and antichrists, and deceivers, described
them and their generation; and belonged to them who were found walking in
their steps, and bringing forth their fruits; and not unto us, who were
not guilty of such things. I manifested to them that they were out of the
steps of the true prophets and apostles; and showed them clearly; by the
fruits and marks, that it was they of whom those Scriptures spoke, and not
we. And I declared the Truth, and the Word of life to the people; and directed
them to Christ their teacher.
When I came down again to Joseph Nicholson's house, I saw a great hole in
my coat, which was cut with a knife; but it was not cut through my doublet,
for the Lord had prevented their mischief. The next day there was a rude,
wicked man who would have done violence to a Friend, but the Lord's power
stopped him.
Now was I moved to send James Lancaster to appoint a meeting at the steeple-house
of John Wilkinson, near Cockermouth, -- a preacher in great repute, who
had three parishes under him. I stayed at Milholm, in Bootle, till James
Lancaster came back again. In the meantime some of the gentry of the country
had formed a plot against me, and had given a little boy a rapier, with
which to do me mischief. They came with the boy to Joseph Nicholson's to
seek me; but the Lord had so ordered it that I was gone into the fields.
They met with James Lancaster, but did not much abuse him; and not finding
me in the house, they went away again. So I walked up and down in the fields
that night, as very often I used to do, and did not go to bed.
We came the next day to the steeple-house where James Lancaster had appointed
the meeting. There were at this meeting twelve soldiers and their wives,
from Carlisle; and the country people came in, as if it were to a fair.
I lay at a house somewhat short of the place, so that many Friends got thither
before me. When I came I found James Lancaster speaking under a yew tree
which was so full of people that I feared they would break it down.
I looked about for a place to stand upon, to speak unto the people, for
they lay all up and down, like people at a leaguer. After I was discovered,
a professor asked if I would not go into the church? I, seeing no place
abroad convenient to speak to the people from, told him, Yes; whereupon
the people rushed in, so that when I came the house and pulpit were so full
I had much ado to get in. Those that could not get in stood abroad about
the walls.
When the people were settled I stood up on a seat, and the Lord opened my
mouth to declare His everlasting Truth and His everlasting day. When I had
largely declared the Word of life unto them for about the space of three
hours, I walked forth amongst the people, who passed away well satisfied.
Among the rest a professor followed me, praising and commending me; but
his words were like a thistle to me. Many hundreds were convinced that day,
and received the Lord Jesus Christ and His free teaching, with gladness;
of whom some have died in the Truth, and many stand faithful witnesses thereof.
The soldiers also were convinced, and their wives.
After this I went to a village, and many people accompanied me. As I was
sitting in a house full of people, declaring the Word of life unto them,
I cast mine eye upon a woman, and discerned an unclean spirit in her. And
I was moved of the Lord to speak sharply to her, and told her she was under
the influence of an unclean spirit; whereupon she went out of the room.
Now, I being a stranger there, and knowing nothing of the woman outwardly,
the people wondered at it, and told me afterwards that I had discovered
a great thing; for all the country looked upon her to be a wicked person.
The Lord had given me a spirit of discerning, by which I many times saw
the states and conditions of people, and could try their spirits. For not
long before, as I was going to a meeting, I saw some women in a field, and
I discerned an evil spirit in them; and I was moved to go out of my way
into the field to them, and declare unto them their conditions. At another
time there came one into Swarthmore Hall in the meeting time, and I was
moved to speak sharply to her, and told her she was under the power of an
evil spirit; and the people said afterwards she was generally accounted
so. There came also at another time another woman, and stood at a distance
from me, and I cast mine eye upon her, and said, "Thou hast been an
harlot"; for I perfectly saw the condition and life of the woman. The
woman answered and said that many could tell her of her outward sins, but
none could tell her of her inward. Then I told her her heart was not right
before the Lord, and that from the inward came the outward. This woman came
afterwards to be convinced of God's truth, and became a Friend.
Thence we travelled to Carlisle. The pastor of the Baptists, with most of
his hearers, came to the abbey, where I had a meeting; and I declared the
Word of life amongst them. Many of the Baptists and of the soldiers were
convinced. After the meeting the pastor of the Baptists, an high notionist
and a flashy man, asked me what must be damned. I was moved immediately
to tell him that that which spoke in him was to be damned. This stopped
his mouth; and the witness of God was raised up in him. I opened to him
the states of election and reprobation; so that he said he never heard the
like in his life. He came afterwards to be convinced.
Then I went to the castle among the soldiers, who beat a drum and called
the garrison together. I preached the Truth amongst them, directing them
to the Lord Jesus Christ to be their teacher, and to the measure of His
Spirit in themselves, by which they might be turned from darkness to light,
and from the power of Satan unto God. I warned them all that they should
do no violence to any man, but should show forth a Christian life: telling
them that He who was to be their Teacher would be their condemner if they
were disobedient to Him. So I left them, having no opposition from any of
them, except the sergeants, who afterwards came to be convinced.
On the market-day I went up into the market, to the market-cross. The magistrates
had both threatened, and sent their sergeants; and the magistrates' wives
had said that if I came there they would pluck the hair off my head; and
the sergeants should take me up. Nevertheless I obeyed the Lord God, went
up on the cross, and declared unto them that the day of the Lord was coming
upon all their deceitful ways and doings, and deceitful merchandise; that
they should put away all cozening and cheating, and keep to Yea and Nay,
and speak the truth one to another. So the Truth and the power of God was
set over them.
After I had declared the Word of life to the people, the throng being so
great that the sergeants could not reach me, nor the magistrates' wives
come at me, I passed away quietly. Many people and soldiers came to me,
and some Baptists, that were bitter contenders; amongst whom one of their
deacons, an envious man, finding that the Lord's power was over them, cried
out for very anger. Whereupon I set my eyes upon him, and spoke sharply
to him in the power of the Lord: and he cried, "Do not pierce me so
with thy eyes; keep thy eyes off me."
The First-day following I went into the steeple-house: and after the priest
had done, I preached the Truth to the people, and declared the Word of life
amongst them. The priest got away; and the magistrates desired me to go
out of the steeple-house. But I still declared the way of the Lord unto
them, and told them I came to speak the Word of life and salvation from
the Lord amongst them. The power of the Lord was dreadful amongst them,
so that the people trembled and shook, and they thought the steeple-house
shook; some of them feared it would have fallen down on their heads. The
magistrates' wives were in a rage, and strove mightily to get at me: but
the soldiers and friendly people stood thick about me.
At length the rude people of the city rose, and came with staves and stones
into the steeple-house, crying, "Down with these round-headed rogues";
and they threw stones. Whereupon the governor sent a file or two of musketeers
into the steeple-house to appease the tumult, and commanded all the other
soldiers out. So those soldiers took me by the hand in a friendly manner,
and said they would have me along with them.
When we came into the street the city was in an uproar. The governor came
down; and some of the soldiers were put in prison for standing by me against
the townspeople.
A lieutenant, who had been convinced, came and brought me to his house,
where there was a Baptist meeting, and thither came Friends also. We had
a very quiet meeting; they heard the Word of life gladly, and many received
it.
The next day, the justices and magistrates of the town being gathered together
in the town-hall, they granted a warrant against me, and sent for me before
them. I was then gone to a Baptist's; but hearing of it, I went up to the
hall, where many rude people were, some of whom had sworn false things against
me. I had a great deal of discourse with the magistrates, wherein I laid
open the fruits of their priests' preaching, showed them how they were void
of Christianity, and that, though they were such great professors (for they
were Independents and Presbyterians) they were without the possession of
that which they professed. After a large examination they committed me to
prison as a blasphemer, a heretic, and a seducer, though they could not
justly charge any such thing against me.
The jail at Carlisle had two jailers, an upper and an under, who looked
like two great bear-wards. When I was brought in the upper jailer took me
up into a great chamber, and told me I should have what I would in that
room. But I told him he should not expect any money from me, for I would
neither lie in any of his beds, nor eat any of his victuals. Then he put
me into another room, where after awhile I got something to lie upon.
There I lay till the assizes came, and then all the talk was that I was
to be hanged. The high sheriff, Wilfred Lawson, stirred them much up to
take away my life, and said he would guard me to my execution himself. They
were in a rage, and set three musketeers for guard upon me, one at my chamber-door,
another at the stairs-foot, and a third at the street door; and they would
let none come at me, except one sometimes, to bring me some necessary things.
At night, sometimes as late as the tenth hour, they would bring up priests
to me, who were exceeding rude and devilish. There were a company of bitter
Scotch priests, Presbyterians, made up of envy and malice, who were not
fit to speak of the things of God, they were so foul-mouthed. But the Lord,
by His power, gave me dominion over them all, and I let them see both their
fruits and their spirits. Great ladies also (as they were called) came to
see the man that they said was to die. While the judge, justices, and sheriff
were contriving together how they might put me to death, the Lord disappointed
their design by an unexpected way.
The next day, after the judges were gone out of town, an order was sent
to the jailer to put me down into the prison amongst the moss-troopers,
thieves, and murderers; which accordingly he did. A filthy, nasty place
it was, where men and women were put together in a very uncivil manner,
and never a house of office to it; and the prisoners were so lousy that
one woman was almost eaten to death with lice. Yet bad as the place was,
the prisoners were all made very loving and subject to me, and some of them
were convinced of the Truth, as the publicans and harlots were of old; so
that they were able to confound any priest that might come to the grates
to dispute.
But the jailer was cruel, and the under-jailer very abusive both to me and
to Friends that came to see me; for he would beat with a great cudgel Friends
who did but come to the window to look in upon me. I could get up to the
grate, where sometimes I took in my meat; at which the jailer was often
offended. Once he came in a great rage and beat me with his cudgel, though
I was not at the grate at that time; and as he beat me, he cried, "Come
out of the window," though I was then far from it. While he struck
me, I was moved in the Lord's power to sing, which made him rage the more.
Then he fetched a fiddler, and set him to play, thinking to vex me. But
while he played, I was moved in the everlasting power of the Lord God to
sing; and my voice drowned the noise of the fiddle, struck and confounded
them, and made them give over fiddling and go their way.
Whilst I was in prison at Carlisle, James Parnell, a little lad about sixteen
years of age, came to see me, and was convinced. The Lord quickly made him
a powerful minister of the Word of life, and many were turned to Christ
by him, though he lived not long. For, travelling into Essex in the work
of the ministry, in the year 1655, he was committed to Colchester castle,
where he endured very great hardships and sufferings. He was put by the
cruel jailer into a hole in the castle wall, called the oven, so high from
the ground that he went up to it by a ladder, which being six feet too short,
he was obliged to climb from the ladder to the hole by a rope that was fastened
above. When Friends would have given him a cord and a basket in which to
draw up his victuals, the inhuman jailer would not suffer them, but forced
him to go down and up by that short ladder and rope to fetch his victuals,
which for a long time he did, or else he might have famished in the hole.
At length his limbs became much benumbed with lying in that place; yet being
still obliged to go down to take up some victuals, as he came up the ladder
again with his victuals in one hand, and caught at the rope with the other,
he missed the rope, and fell down from a very great height upon the stones;
by which fall he was so wounded in the head, arms, and body, that he died
a short time after.
While I thus lay in the dungeon at Carlisle, the report raised at the time
of the assize that I should be put to death was gone far and near; insomuch
that the Parliament then sitting, which, I think, was called the Little
Parliament, hearing that a young man at Carlisle was to die for religion,
caused a letter to be sent the sheriff and magistrates concerning me.
Not long after this the Lord's power came over the justices, and they were
made to set me at liberty. But some time previous the governor and Anthony
Pearson came down into the dungeon, to see the place where I was kept and
understand what usage I had had. They found the place so bad and the savour
so ill, that they cried shame on the magistrates for suffering the jailer
to do such things. They called for the jailers into the dungeon, and required
them to find sureties for their good behaviour; and the under-jailer, who
had been such a cruel fellow, they put into the dungeon with me, amongst
the moss-troopers.
Now I went into the country, and had mighty great meetings. The everlasting
gospel and Word of life flourished, and thousands were turned to the Lord
Jesus Christ, and to His teaching.
The priests and magistrates were in a great rage against me in Westmoreland,
and had a warrant to apprehend me, which they renewed from time to time,
for a long time; yet the Lord did not suffer them to serve it upon me. I
travelled on amongst Friends, visiting the meetings till I came to Swarthmore,
where I heard that the Baptists and professors in Scotland had sent to have
a dispute with me. I sent them word that I would meet them in Cumberland,
at Thomas Bewley's house, whither accordingly I went, but none of them came.
Some dangers at this time I underwent in my travels; for at one time, as
we were passing from a meeting, and going through Wigton on a market-day,
the people of the town had set a guard with pitchforks; and although some
of their own neighbours were with us, they kept us out of the town, and
would not let us pass through it, under the pretence of preventing the sickness;
though there was no occasion for any such thing. However, they fell upon
us, and had like to have spoiled us and our horses; but the Lord restrained
them, that they did not much hurt; and we passed away.
Another time, as I was passing between two Friends' houses, some rude fellows
lay in wait in a lane, and exceedingly stoned and abused us; but at last,
through the Lord's assistance, we got through them, and had not much hurt.
But this showed the fruits of the priest's teaching, which shamed their
profession of Christianity.
After I had visited Friends in that county, I went through the county into
Durham, having large meetings by the way. A very large one I had at Anthony
Pearson's, where many were convinced. From thence I passed through Northumberland
to Derwentwater, where there were great meetings; and the priests threatened
that they would come, but none came. The everlasting Word of life was freely
preached, and freely received; and many hundreds were turned to Christ,
their teacher.
In Northumberland many came to dispute, of whom some pleaded against perfection.
Unto these I declared that Adam and Eve were perfect before they fell; that
all that God made was perfect; that the imperfection came by the devils
and the fall; but that Christ, who came to destroy the devil, said, "Be
ye perfect."
One of the professors alleged that Job said, "Shall mortal man be more
pure than his Maker? The heavens are not clean in His sight. God charged
His angels with folly." But I showed him his mistake, and let him see
that it was not Job that said so, but one of those that contended against
Job; for Job stood for perfection, and held his integrity; and they were
called miserable comforters.
Then these professors said that the outward body was the body of death and
sin. I showed them their mistake in that also; for Adam and Eve had each
of them an outward body, before the body of death and sin got into them;
and that man and woman will have bodies when the body of sin and death is
put off again; when they are renewed again into the image of God by Christ
Jesus, in which they were before they fell. So they ceased at that time
from opposing further; and glorious meetings we had in the Lord's power.
Then passed we to Hexam, where we had a great meeting on top of a hill.
The priest threatened that he would come and oppose us, but he came not;
so all was quiet. And the everlasting day and renowned Truth of the ever-living
God was sounded over those dark countries, and His Son exalted over all.
It was proclaimed amongst the people that the day was now come wherein all
that made a profession of the Son of God might receive Him; and that to
as many as would receive Him He would give power to become the sons of God,
as He had done to me.
It was further declared that he who had the Son of God, had life eternal;
but he that had not the Son of God, though he professed all the Scriptures
from the first of Genesis to the last of the Revelation, had no life.
So after all were directed to the light of Christ, by which they might see
Him, receive Him, and know where their true teacher was, and the everlasting
Truth had been largely declared amongst them, we passed through Hexam peaceably,
and came into Gilsland, a country noted for thieving.
The next day we came into Cumberland again, where we had a general meeting
of thousands of people on top of an hill near Langlands. A glorious and
heavenly meeting it was; for the glory of the Lord did shine over all; and
there were as many as one could well speak over, the multitude was so great.
Their eyes were turned to Christ, their teacher; and they came to sit under
their own vine; insomuch that Francis Howgill, coming afterwards to visit
them, found they had no need of words; for they were sitting under their
teacher Christ Jesus; in the sense whereof He sat down amongst them, without
speaking anything.
A great convincement there was in Cumberland, Bishoprick, Northumberland,
Westmoreland, Lancashire, and Yorkshire; and the plants of God grew and
flourished, the heavenly rain descending, and God's glory shining upon them.
Many mouths were opened by the Lord to His praise; yea, to babes and sucklings
he ordained strength. |