I wished him to consider whether this Act, if it had been in their time, would not have taken hold of Christ, with His twelve apostles and seventy disciples, who used to meet often together, and that with great numbers? However, I told him this Act did not concern us; for it was made against seditious meetings, of such as met under colour and pretence of religion "to contrive insurrections, as [the Act says] late experience had shown." But we had been sufficiently tried and proved, and always found peaceable, and therefore he would do well to put a difference between the innocent and the guilty.
He said the Act was made against meetings, and a worship not according to the liturgy.
I told him "according to" was not the very same thing; and asked him whether the liturgy was according to the Scriptures, and whether we might not read Scriptures and speak Scriptures.
He said, "Yes."
I told him, "This Act takes hold only of such as meet to plot and contrive insurrections, as late experience hath shown; but they have never experienced that by us. Because thieves are sometimes on the road, must not honest men travel? And because plotters and contrivers have met to do mischief, must not an honest, peaceable people meet to do good? If we had been a people that met to plot and contrive insurrections, etc., we might have drawn ourselves into fours; for four might do more mischief in plotting than if there were four hundred, because four might speak out their minds more freely to one another than four hundred could. Therefore we, being innocent, and not the people this Act concerns, keep our meetings as we used to do. I believe thou knowest in thy conscience that we are innocent."
After some more discourse, he took our names, and the places where we lodged; and at length, as the informer was gone, he set us at liberty.
The Friends with me now asked, "Whither wilt thou go?" I told them, "To Gracechurch street meeting again, if it is not over."
When we came there, the people were generally gone; only some few stood at the gate. We went into Gerrard Roberts's. Thence I sent to know how the other meetings in the city were. I found that at some of the meeting-places Friends had been kept out; at others they had been taken; but these were set at liberty again a few days after.
A glorious time it was; for the Lord's power came over all, and His everlasting truth got renown. For in the meetings, as fast as some that were speaking were taken down, others were moved of the Lord to stand up and speak, to the admiration of the people; and the more because many Baptists and other sectaries left their public meetings, and came to see how the Quakers would stand.