G. F.’
Divers times when a fast was proclaimed, G. Fox wrote on that subject; and since commonly some mischief was then contrived against the Quakers, no wonder that he would say, that these fasts were like unto Jezebel’s.
Many of his friends being at this time in prisons and dungeons, several others of them went to the parliament, and offered to lie in the same prisons where their brethren lay; that so those that were in prison, might not perish in stinking dungeons, and their persecutors thereby bring innocent blood upon their own heads. But this could not be obtained; for some of the parliament would threaten these compassionate men that thus attended them, with whipping, if they did not desist. And because the parliament then sitting, consisted mostly of such who, pretending to be more religious than others, were indeed great persecutors of those that were truly religious, G. Fox could not let this hypocrisy go unreproved, but wrote the following lines to them:
‘O friends, do not cloak and cover yourselves; there is a God that knoweth your hearts, and that will uncover you. He seeth your way: “Wo be to him that covereth, but not with my Spirit,” saith the Lord. Do ye contrary to the law, and then put it from you? Mercy and true judgment ye neglect. Look, what was spoken against such: my Saviour spake against such: “I was sick, and ye visited me not; I was hungry, and ye fed me not; I was a stranger, and ye took me not in; I was in prison, and ye visited me not.” But they said, “When saw we thee in prison, and did not come to thee?” “Inasmuch as ye did it not unto one of these little ones, ye did it not unto me.” Friends, ye prison them that be in the life and power of Truth, and yet profess to be the ministers of Christ: but if Christ had sent you, ye would bring out of prison, and out of bondage, and receive strangers. Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter: ye have condemned and killed the just, and he doth not resist you.
G. F.’
It was not G. Fox alone who was grieved with the said hypocrisy, but others of his friends also declared zealously against it. A certain woman came once into the parliament with a pitcher in her hand, which she breaking before them, told them, so should they be broken to pieces; which came to pass not long after. And because, when the great sufferings of G. Fox’s friends were laid before O. Cromwell, he would not believe it, this gave occasion to Thomas Aldam and Anthony Pearson, to go through all, or most of the jails in England, and get copies of their friends commitment under the jailers’ hands, to lay the weight of the said sufferings upon O. Cromwell, which was done; but he, unwilling to give order for their release, Thomas Aldam took his cap from off his head, and tearing it to pieces, said to him, ‘So shall thy government be rent from thee and thy house.’
About the beginning of this year, E. Burrough wrote a letter to O. Cromwell, and his council, complaining of, and warning them against persecution, as being what would draw down God’s anger against them.
Several copies of the said letter were delivered to Oliver, and his council: and some months after E. Burrough wrote the following letter to him.
To the Protector.
‘Friend,