Leaving them busy with this work, we will take a turn toward Bristol, to behold the performances of John Audland, and Thomas Airey; who came thither in the month called July in this year, and going into the meetings of the Independents and Baptists, they found opportunity to preach Truth there, and also had occasion to speak to others, so that many received their testimony.
From thence they went to Plymouth in Devonshire, and so to London, where they met with John Camm; but after some stay there, John Audland returned to Bristol with John Camm, and found there a door opened for their ministry. Among those that did receive their testimony, were Josiah Cole, George Bishop, Charles Marshal, and Barbara Blaugdone, concerning which persons more is to be said hereafter. It was not long ere F. Howgill and E. Burrough, having gathered a church at London, came also to Bristol, where persecution now began to appear with open face: for the magistrates commanded them to depart the city and the liberties thereof; to which they answered, that they came not in the will of man; and that when He who moved them to come thither, did move them also to depart, they should obey; that if they were guilty of the transgression of any law, they were not unwilling to suffer by it; that they were free-born Englishmen, being free from the transgression of any law; and that if by violence they were put out of the city, they were ready to suffer, and would not resist; and so they departed out of the presence of the rulers. But now the priests, especially one Ralph Farmer, began to incite and enrage the people, and to set the city, as it were, on fire.
Hence it was that J. Camm and J. Audland, intending to have a meeting at Brislington, about two miles from Bristol, and passing over a bridge, were assaulted by the rabble of the city, and several apprentices of Farmer’s parish, who having got notice of their coming, were gathered there, and violently abused them with beating, kicking, and a continual cry, knock them down, kill them, or hang them presently. Thus they were driven back, and forced into the city again, narrowly escaping with their lives. But the tumult did not yet cease; for some of the multitude were heard to say, that they should find more protection from the magistrates, than those strangers, viz. Camm and Audland. But the officers of the garrison, thinking it unwarrantable to permit such a tumult, since it was not without reason to be feared, that the royalists, or abettors of King Charles, might take hold of such an opportunity to raise an insurrection, caused three of the ringleaders to be seized; but this made such a stir, that the next day more than five hundred people, as it was thought, were gathered together in a seditious manner, so that their companions were set at liberty. This made the tumultuous mob more bold and saucy, the rather because they saw that the magistrates, hearing that J. Camm and J. Audland not only had kept a meeting at Brislington, but also had visited some in their houses at Bristol, had bid them to depart the town.
Now the riotous multitude did not stick to rush violently into the houses of the Quakers, so called, at Bristol, under a pretence of preventing treasonable plottings. And when some in zeal told the priests, these were the fruits of their doctrine, they incited the people the more, and induced the magistrates to imprison some of those called Quakers. This instigated the rabble to that degree, that now they thought they had full liberty to use all kind of insolence against the said people; beating, smiting, pushing, and often treading upon them, till blood was shed: for they were become a prey to every malapert fellow, as a people that were without the protection of the law. This often caused a tumult in the town; and some said, (not without good reason,) that the apprentices durst not have left their work, had not their masters given them leave. And a certain person informed the mayor and aldermen upon his oath, that he had heard an apprentice say, that they had leave from their masters, and were encouraged; for alderman George Hellier had said, he would die rather than any of the apprentices should go to prison. Now an order of sessions came forth, that the constables do once in every fortnight, make diligent search within their several wards, for all strangers and suspicious persons; and that all people be forewarned, not to be present at any tumult, or other unlawful assembly, or gather into companies or multitudes in the streets, on pain of being punished according to law. But this order was to little purpose, for the tumultuous companies and riots continued; and once when a proclamation was read in the name of the Lord Protector, requiring every one to depart, some of the rioters were heard to say, ‘What do you tell us of a Protector? tell us of King Charles.’ In the meanwhile the Quakers, so called, were kept in prison, and it plainly appeared that the order against unlawful assemblies was levelled against their meetings: and though the magistrates pretended that they must answer for it to the Protector, if they did let the Quakers alone without disturbing their meetings, which at that time, for the most part, were silent, and nothing was spoken, but when now and then one of their ministers from abroad visited them; yet this was not at all agreeable with the Protector’s speech he made on the 12th of the month called September, to the parliament, in the painted chamber, where he spoke these words:
‘Is not liberty of conscience in religion a fundamental? so long as there is liberty for the supreme magistrate, to exercise his conscience in erecting what form of church government he is satisfied he should set up, why should he not give it to others? Liberty of conscience is a natural right, and he that would have it, ought to give it, having liberty to settle what he likes for the public. Indeed that hath been the vanity of our contests: every sect saith, Give me liberty; but give it him, and to his power he will not yield it to any body else. Where is our ingenuity? Truly that is a thing that ought to be very reciprocal. The magistrate hath his supremacy, and he may settle religion according to his conscience. And I may say to you, I can say it, all the money in the nation would not have tempted men to fight upon such an account as they have engaged, if they had not had hopes of liberty, better than they had from episcopacy, or than would have been afforded them from a Scottish Presbytery, or an English either, if it had made such steps, or been as sharp and rigid as it threatened when it was first set up. This I say is a fundamental: it ought to be so. It is for us and the generations to come.’
Cromwell spoke more in confirmation hereof; and indeed he would have been a brave man, if really he had performed what he asserted with binding arguments. But though now he seemed to disapprove the behaviour of Presbytery, (for then he was for Independency,) yet after some time he courted the Presbyterians; and these fawning upon him from the pulpit, as their preserver and the restorer of the church, he suffered the Quakers to be persecuted under his government, though he pretended not to know it, when he might easily have stopt it. But by hearkening to the flatteries of the clergy, at length he lost his credit, even with those who with him had fought for the common liberty; and thus at last befel him after his death, what he seemed to have imprecated on himself in the foregoing speech, if he departed from allowing due liberty. For he further said, that many of the people had been necessitated to go into the vast howling wilderness in New England, for the enjoyment of their liberty; and that liberty was a fundamental of the government; adding, that it had cost much blood to have it so, and even the hazarding of all. And in the conclusion he said, that he could sooner be willing to be rolled into his grave, and buried with infamy, than give his consent to the wilful throwing away of that government; so testified unto in the fundamentals of it. Now who knows not what infamy befel him afterwards, when in the reign of King Charles the Second, it is said, his corpse was digged up, and buried near the gallows, as may be further mentioned in its due place?
But I return now to Bristol, where several were kept in prison still, and no liberty granted them; nay, they were even charged with what they utterly denied themselves to be guilty of. Among these, one John Worring was accused of having called the priest, Samuel Grimes, a devil: but Worring denied this, though he did not stick to say, he could prove somewhat like it by his own words. And it being asked him how, he answered, that the priest had said at the meeting, that in all things he did, he sinned; and if in all things, then as well in his preaching, as in other things; and he that sinneth is of the devil. If you will not believe me, believe the Scriptures. It may be easily conjectured that this answer did not please the priests’ followers, and therefore Worring and some others were kept in prison: and among these also Elizabeth Marshall, who in the steeple-house, after the priest John Knowls had dismissed the people with what is called the blessing, spoke to him, and said, ‘This is the word of the Lord to thee. I warn thee to repent, and to mind the light of Christ in thy conscience.’ And when the people, by order of the magistrates then present, violently assaulted her, giving her many blows with staves and cudgels, she cried out, ‘The mighty day of the Lord is at hand, wherein he will strike terror on the wicked.’ Some time before she spoke also in the steeple-house to the priest Ralph Farmer, after he had ended his sermon and prayer, and said, ‘This is the word of the Lord to thee. Wo, wo, wo from the Lord to them who take the word of the Lord in their mouths, and the Lord never sent them.’
A good while after this, the magistrates gave out the following warrant:
‘City of Bristol.
‘To all the constables within this city, and to every one of them.