You have already heard that the Quakers date from Christ,who,according to them,was the first Quaker.Religion,say these,was corrupted a little after His death,and remained in that state of corruption about sixteen hundred years.But there were always a few Quakers concealed in the world,who carefully preserved the sacred fire,which was extinguished in all but themselves,until at last this light spread itself in England in 1642.
It was at the time when Great Britain was torn to pieces by the intestine wars which three or four sects had raised in the name of God,that one George Fox,born in Leicestershire,and son to a silk-weaver,took it into his head to preach,and,as he pretended,with all the requisites of a true apostle--that is,without being able either to read or write.He was about twenty-five years of age,irreproachable in his life and conduct,and a holy madman.He was equipped in leather from head to foot,and travelled from one village to another,exclaiming against war and the clergy.Had his invectives been levelled against the soldiery only he would have been safe enough,but he inveighed against ecclesiastics.Fox was seized at Derby,and being carried before a justice of peace,he did not once offer to pull off his leathern hat,upon which an officer gave him a great box of the ear,and cried to him,"Don't you know you are to appear uncovered before his worship?"Fox presented his other cheek to the officer,and begged him to give him another box for God's sake.The justice would have had him sworn before he asked him any questions."Know,friend,"says Fox to him,"that Inever swear."The justice,observing he "thee'd"and "thou'd"him,sent him to the House of Correction,in Derby,with orders that he should be whipped there.Fox praised the Lord all the way he went to the House of Correction,where the justice's order was executed with the utmost severity.The men who whipped this enthusiast were greatly surprised to hear him beseech them to give him a few more lashes for the good of his soul.There was no need of entreating these people;the lashes were repeated,for which Fox thanked them very cordially,and began to preach.At first the spectators fell a-laughing,but they afterwards listened to him;and as enthusiasm is an epidemical distemper,many were persuaded,and those who scourged him became his first disciples.Being set at liberty,he ran up and down the country with a dozen proselytes at his heels,still declaiming against the clergy,and was whipped from time to time.Being one day set in the pillory,he harangued the crowd in so strong and moving a manner,that fifty of the auditors became his converts,and he won the rest so much in his favour that,his head being freed tumultuously from the hole where it was fastened,the populace went and searched for the Church of England clergyman who had been chiefly instrumental in bringing him to this punishment,and set him on the same pillory where Fox had stood.
Fox was bold enough to convert some of Oliver Cromwell's soldiers,who thereupon quitted the service and refused to take the oaths.
