CONFORMITY, PRESSED AND REPRESSED.
B. What! You are one of them that do deny
To yield obedience by conformity.
Q. Nay: we desire conformable to be.
B. But unto what? Q. The Image of the Son. [190]
B. What’s that to us! We’ll have conformity
Unto our form. Q. Then we shall ne’er have done.
For, if your fickle minds should alter, we
Should be to seek a new conformity.
Thus, who to-day conform to Prelacy,
To-morrow may conform to Popery.
But take this for an answer, Bishop, we
Cannot conform either to them or thee;
For while to truth your forms are opposite,
Whoe’er conforms thereto doth not aright.
B. We’ll make such knaves as you conform, or lie
Confined in prisons till ye rot and die.
Q. Well, gentle Bishop, I may live to see,
For all thy threats, a check to cruelty;
But in the meantime, I, for my defence,
Betake me to my fortress, Patience.
No sooner was this cruel law made but it was put in execution with great severity; the sense whereof working strongly on my spirit, made me cry earnestly to the Lord that he would arise and set up his righteous judgment in the earth for the deliverance of his people from all their enemies, both inward and outward; and in these terms I uttered it:
Awake, awake, O arm of th’ Lord, awake,
Thy sword uptake;
Cast what would Thine forgetful of Thee make
Into the lake.
Awake, I pray, O mighty Jah, awake
Make all the world before Thy presence quake,
Not only earth, but heaven also shake.
Arise, arise, O Jacob’s God, arise,
And hear the cries
Of ev’ry soul which in distress now lies,
And to Thee flies.
Arise, I pray, O Israel’s hope, arise;
Set free Thy seed, oppressed by enemies.
Why should they over it still tyrannize?
Make speed, make speed, O Israel’s help, make speed,
In time of need;
For evil men have wickedly decreed
Against Thy seed.
Make speed, I pray, O mighty God, make speed;
Let all Thy lambs from savage wolves be freed,
That fearless on Thy mountain they may feed.
Ride on, ride on, Thou Valiant Man of Might,
And put to flight
Those sons of Belial who do despite
To the upright:
Ride on, I say, Thou Champion, and smite
Thine and Thy people’s enemies, with such might
That none may dare ’gainst Thee or Thine to fight.
Although the storm raised by the Act for banishment fell with the greatest weight and force upon some other parts, as at London, Hertford, &c., yet we were not in Buckinghamshire wholly exempted therefrom, for a part of that shower reached us also.
For a Friend of Amersham, whose name was Edward Perot or Parret, departing this life, and notice being given that his body would be buried there on such a day, which was the first day of the fifth month, 1665, the Friends of the adjacent parts of the country resorted pretty generally to the burial, so that there was a fair appearance of Friends and neighbours, the deceased having been well-beloved by both.
After we had spent some time together in the house, Morgan Watkins, who at that time happened to be at Isaac Penington’s, being with us, the body was taken up and borne on Friends’ shoulders along the street in order to be carried to the burying-ground, which was at the town’s end, being part of an orchard belonging to the deceased, which he in his lifetime had appointed for that service.
It so happened that one Ambrose Benett, a barrister at law and a justice of the peace for that county, riding through the town that morning on his way to Aylesbury, was by some ill-disposed person or other informed that there was a Quaker to be buried there that day, and that most of the Quakers in the country were come thither to the burial.
Upon this he set up his horses and stayed, and when we, not knowing anything of his design against us, went innocently forward to perform our Christian duty for the interment of our friend, he rushed out of his inn upon us with the constables and a rabble of rude fellows whom he had gathered together, and having his drawn sword in his hand, struck one of the foremost of the bearers with it, commanding them to set down the coffin. But the Friend who was so stricken, whose name was Thomas Dell, being more concerned for the safety of the dead body than his own, lest it should fall from his shoulder, and any indecency thereupon follow, held the coffin fast; which the Justice observing, and being enraged that his word (how unjust soever) was not forthwith obeyed, set his hand to the coffin, and with a forcible thrust threw it off from the bearers’ shoulders, so that it fell to the ground in the midst of the street, and there we were forced to leave it.
For immediately thereupon, the Justice giving command for the apprehending us, the constables with the rabble fell on us, and drew some and drove others into the inn, giving thereby an opportunity to the rest to walk away.