[377] Sewel's History of Friends, i. 105.
[378] Journal, i. 213.
[379] Two striking cases, however, occurred in New England. See Besse's Sufferings, 235.
[380] Sewel's History, i. 112.
[381] In a Diurnal, February 16, 1654-55, mention is made of letters from several places, which speak of Quakers and Ranters, and others that disturb ministers in their sermons in public churches, and the meetings of ministers and other Christians in private, in several places of England. The Quaker meetings are said to be receptacles for Papists, and Popish priests and friars.
In another Commonwealth newspaper it is said: "Some think this Fox is a Popish priest, because of his tenets of salvation by works." Most absurd and incredible stories are told of Fox and Mr. Fell.
The monstrous things related in these newspapers defy belief. What was thought of Quakers in high quarters may be seen in the Pell correspondence.—Vaughan's Protectorate, ii. 309.
[382] The difficulty in believing these stories does not arise from what we know of the moral character of the Jesuits, but only from their reputation for cleverness, and from what we know of the shrewdness of the Quakers. The Quakers were not likely to be so deceived by the Jesuits, and the Jesuits were not likely to adopt a scheme of action which promised so little success. But the Provincial Letters of Pascal, written during the Protectorate, prove that Jesuit morality placed no bar in the way of such dishonest intrigues.
[383] Abstract of the Sufferings of the People called Quakers, i. 216, 222, 223. See also Evelyn's Diary, i. 332.
The Quakers were often very violent. There is a very intemperate and foolish pamphlet, entitled, A True Testimony against the Pope's Ways, in a Return to that Agreement of '42 of those who call themselves Ministers of Christ (but are proved to be wrongers of Men and of Christ), in the County of Worcester: by Richard Farnsworth, a Quaker, 1656. Richard Baxter is first on the list of persons attacked.—See also Sussex Arch. Collections, vol. xvi. The Quakers were assailed in their turn most furiously. For example, there is a tract entitled, The Deceived and Deceiving Quakers discovered; their Damnable Heresies, Horrid Blasphemies, &c., laid open, by Matthew Caffin, a Servant of the Lord, related to the Church of Christ, near Worsham, in Sussex, 1656. This was answered by James Nayler, with like scurrility. It is curious that Caffin denies the man of sin to be Popery, and maintains that he is a person yet to appear. Nayler sets Caffin down as Antichrist.