To be accounted rebels and bold villains, does not in any measure make us uneasy; for the believing ourselves otherwise, is a compleat satisfaction to ballance their envy that so think us; besides the pleasure we find in accounting them fools, slaves and cowards, is really more to us than a sufficient recompence: so that by our vilifying our opposites, we deny them opportunity ever to be even with us. The author of the dialogue between Vassal and Freeman, is our secretary; you guess’d his name very right in your letter, and a notable fellow he is either in verse or prose, for the justification of our principles; and is such a desperate tongue-stabbing hero at pro and con, that he clears the house of all people wherever he comes, but those of his own kidney; he vindicates all the proceedings of the High Court of Justice, with such admirable obstinacy and impudence, that the best lawyer in Westminster-hall is not able to cope with him, and justifies the bringing of a king to a scaffold, when the people dislike his stewardship, with so much insolence and arrogance, and drags him to a block, as you would a bear to a stake, with so much decency, that had he liv’d in the happy days when you erected a High Court of Justice, he would have been the fittest man in the universe for two posts under you; First, To have been attorney-general, and then executioner, and would, I am confident, have so strenuously exerted himself in both offices, that he would have gained a double reputation with our godly party. First, For the discharge of the one with the utmost malignancy. And, Secondly, For the dispatch of the other without disguise; for I dare be confident, he has assurance enough to go through-stitch with any thing that the world calls villainy, if we but think it virtue without the fear of shame, or dread of punishment: indeed, had our growing principles at this day but such another champion to defend ’em, I do not question but in a few years we might bring matters to bear, and by downright dint of our own weapon, calumny, make way to play the old game over again, to a far better purpose than has been yet effected. With the great hopes of which we take leave at present, desiring your brother Lucifer upon all occasions to lend us his assistance. So we subscribe ourselves both his and your
Humble Servants,
J.T. S.B. J.S. &c.
From J. Naylor, to his Friends at the Bull and Mouth.
Friends and Brethren in the Spirit,
YOU who are the true transcript of the people originally call’d Quakers, may perhaps expect, that I James Naylor in the dark, should commend my hearty love to you my friends in the light, in such like manner as the spirit us’d to dictate to me upon earth, before I unhappily fell under this wonderful transfiguration, which I now am appointed to maintain thro’ the whole course of eternity.
I had no sooner set footing into this deep abyss of midnight, to which the sun, moon and stars are as great strangers, as frost and snow are to the country of Ethiopia, but a parcel of black spiritual janizaries saluted me as intimately as if I had been resident in these parts during the term of an apprenticeship; at last up comes a swindging lusty, over-grown, austre devil, arm’d with an ugly weapon like a country dung fork, looking as sharp about the eyes as a Woodstreet officer, and seem’d to deport himself after such a manner, that discovered he had an ascendency over the rest of the immortal negroes, and, as I imagin’d, so ’twas quickly evident; for as soon as he espied me leering between the diminutive slabbering-bib, and the extensive brims of my cony-wool umbrella, he chucks me under the chin with his ugly toad-colour’d paw, that stunk as bad of brimstone as a card-match new lighted, crying, How now, honest James, I am glad to see thee on this side the river Styx, prithee hold up thy beard, and don’t be asham’d, thou art not the first quaker by many thousands that has sworn allegiance to my government; besides, thou hast been one of my best benefactors upon earth, and now thou shalt see like a grateful devil, I’ll reward thee accordingly: I thank your excellency kindly, said I, pray what is it your infernal protectorship will be pleas’d to confer upon me? To which his mighty ugliness reply’d, friend Naylor, I know thou hast been very industrious to make many people fools in the upper world, which has highly conduc’d to my interest. Then turning to a pigmy aërial, who attended his commands as a running footman; haste, Numps, says he, and fetch me the painted coat, which was no sooner brought, but, by Lucifer’s command, I was shov’d into it neck and shoulders, by half a dozen smutty valets de chambre, and in a minute’s time found my self trick’d up in a rainbow-colour’d coat, like a merry-andrew. Now, friend, says the ill-favour’d prince of all the hell-born scoundrels, for the many fools you have made above, I now ordain you mine below; so all the reward, truly, of my great services, was to be made Lucifer’s jester, or fool in ordinary to the devil: a pretty post, thought I, for a man of my principles, that from a quaker in the other world, I should be metamorphosed into a jack-adams in the lower one. I could not but think it a strange kind of mutation, and knew no more how to behave myself in my gaudy-colour’d robes, than if I had been damn’d, and cramm’d into a tortoise-shell, and must have walk’d about hell upon all fours with a house upon my back.
In a little time after this new dignity was conferr’d upon me, the devil happen’d to make a splendid entertainment for all the souls in his dominion, who in the upper world had been profess’d Quakers, where I, quoth the fool, was ordered to give my attendance for the diversion of the company, but found myself so strangely disappointed when I beheld the guests, that had I been messed in Noah’s ark among lyons, bears, and alligators, I could not have been more amaz’d than I was at the unexpected appearance and deportment of such a confus’d assembly: my master Lucifer, and Ramsey the jesuit at his right hand, sat at the upper end of the table, and the rest of the scrambling company were seated like so many hungry mechanicks at a corporation-feast; but instead of their conversation being Yea and Nay, there never was heard such swearing and cursing at a publick gaming-table, nor all the points of copulation more lewdly discuss’d at a bawdy-house; blasphemy was the modestest of their talk, and there I came in with ’em for a fool’s share, and exerted my talent to the approbation and applause of the whole society.
Observing such a wonderful change in these our infernal friends, from what they appeared to be in the upper world, made my curiosity itch mightily to know the reason of this surprising alteration; upon which, said I, prithee Lucifer, in plain words, (for we fools you must know may say any thing to our masters) what is the meaning that these people who were quondam quakers when upon terra firma, should turn such debauch’d libertines in these lower regions, and from the most religious and precise of all hypocritical heaven-servers, to become the most degenerate reprobates in all your damnable dominions? I’ll tell you, says Lucifer, the reason; always those that pretended to the greatest purity in the other world, put on the cloak of religion, not to save their souls but to hide their vices, as some women wear masks, not to preserve their beauty, but to hide their ugliness; and when that veil is taken away which obscur’d the sinfulness of their natures, or when opportunity gives them leave to be wicked without damage to their interest (as they may here) you see how loose and wanton the most zealous of both sexes will be, notwithstanding all the external promises of piety and vertue. These words, tho’ they came from the father of lies, yet their satirical force gave me such a stab in the conscience, that had my label of mortality been stung by a wasp or a hornet, it could not have griev’d the outward man more, than this diabolical saying did the inward; and knowing by experience it savour’d of a little truth, I thought I could do no more than communicate his answer to you my friends, who are lovers of verity, from whence you may discern with half an eye, that Satan understands you as well as he does the college of Jesuits, or a Dutch conventicle, and if you take not timely care, will certainly prove too cunning for you.
Perhaps you will think me a very imperfect intelligencer, to tell you of a feast, and give you no account of the provisions, or what sort food the devil in his sultry dominions entertains his friends withal; therefore in the next place I shall venture to give you a bill of fare, that you may know at present what you may expect hereafter, lest otherwise I should leave your curiosities unsatisfied, and keep you ignorant of those avernous dainties by which immortality is here subsisted.
The first course consisted of a huge platterful of scorpions spits-cock’d, a fricassee of young salamanders, a bailiff’s rump roasted, baisted with its own dung, and a cock phœnix scalded in his feathers, smother’d with melted soap and boil’d arsnick; these were gross, substantial meats, design’d chiefly for keen appetites. The second course contain’d six dozen of West-India gwanas roasted in their own shells, a dish of squab-hickaries poach’d, a brace of flying dragons stew’d in their own blood, and a dish of shovel-nos’d sharks fry’d with a leviathan in the middle, toss’d up with what’s as good for a sow as a pancake; these were dainties that could not but be acceptable to the most squeamish stomachs; but now for rarities that must please the gust of an emperor. The third and last course consisted of such spiritual nutriment, that the nicest palated soul on this side the adamantine gates, without a surfeit, might subsist on to all eternity, which was serv’d up to the table, in much greater order than any of the foregoing part of the entertainment. In the first place, a dish of metaphysical curds, swimming in the cream of eloquence, was brought to the upper end of the table, by a devil in a long gown, upon which piece of cookery Lucifer and the Jesuit fed very heartily. In the next place a dish of pickl’d enthusiasms well pepper’d with obstinancy, and cover’d with the vinegar of dissention, was handed to the board by a meagre-fac’d devil in a little band and long cloak, which by abundance of the company was highly approv’d on. The third dish was a mess of melancholy humdrums, mix’d with sobs and sighs, and garnish’d round with blasphemy and nonsense, serv’d up with a she devil in querpo-hood and green apron, which the whole assembly in general commended, and devour’d as greedily as a gang of Welsh drovers would do a mess of leek-porridge, or a dish of cows bubby. When every soul had fed plentifully, and refresh’d his immortality with a chearful dose of spirit of sulphur, I, quoth the fool, for the jest’s sake, was appointed to say grace after meat; and when I had discharg’d the office of a chaplain, as comical as I could, the guests stagger’d away like so many fluster’d long tails from a Kentish feast, and so the solemnity was ended.