ordained elder of the church at Dover on 13th October 1681. He fuffered much for adherence to his religious profeffion; and died on the 4th August 1696, in the 75th year of his age, having obtained celebrity for piety and ufefulness. The feverity of the jailor, at times, denied the imprisoned the confolation of any act of focial devotion among themselves; at Oxford they were not permitted to pray together; and even the ufual expreffion of piety at their meals was interrupted by the entrance of the jailor in a rage, and by his taunting enquiry, "What are you preaching over your meal?"

The hiftory of these pious sufferers affords examples of the death of perfecutors, which were fo circumstanced as to mark a great depravity of character, and the bafe principles by which the men were actuated; though it belong not to men, who are incompetent judges of the ways of Providence, decidedly to pronounce them divine judgments. Mr. Richard Farmer, minifter at Kibley in Leicesterfhire, an hard student, and a very affecting preacher, by a warrant to feize his goods, loft in one year 120l. One of the informers against him, who boafted on a Christmas, at Trinkley market, of his proceedings against him, and declared exultingly that before Candlemas he should by informations make a good portion for his daughter, was thrown from his horse as he was riding home over a boggy place, where there was a little brook, and drowned in à quantity of water not deep enough to cover his body. Another informer, foon after he had sworn against

Mr. Farmer, died of a fwoln tongue, fufpected of having taken a falfe oath.*

without being

If the characters which have paffed under our review be not tranfmitted down to our times as having enlarged the bounds of fcience, nor as having distinguished themselves in the walks of criticism or philofophy; yet by their religious integrity, and by their zeal and fortitude, they gained the respect of the fect to which they confcientiously adhered, and the interests of which they were active in promoting. In the history of that fect, though it be a circumfcribed theatre of fame, they have a claim to honourable mention. The hardships, loffes, and fufferings, which they experienced in the caufe that they espoused, hold forth inftructive warnings to future times of the malignity of an intolerant and perfecuting spirit among proteftants; and fhew us with what a flow progrefs, and partial operation of better principles, that spirit had declined among the mass of those who were diffidents from the church of Rome, though an hundred and fifty years had elapfed fince the feparation of England from that ecclefiaftical tyranny.

§. 4. Of the Quakers.

THIS community of Chriftians had, during the period preceding the Revolution, fmarted under the fevereft ftrokes of the rod of perfecution. When, after this event, the Act of Toleration was

* Crosby, vol. iii. p. 112, 118, 124-128.

B B

passed, with a design, at once politic and generous, to unite the protestants of the different denominations in an attachment to the new government, against the adherents to popery and the excluded royal race; yet fome were adverse to the extenfion of its benefits, fo as to include the Quakers under its propitious influence." The quakers," it was declared in the House, "were no Chriftians." Some members of this fociety, who attended the Parliament to watch the progress of the bill, and to use their endeavours that it might pafs in fuch terms as might yield an effectual relief to their own body, found it clogged with a confeffion, as a teft upon the diffenters, which carried on its face a defign to exclude them: and they apprehended that it was inferted on the prefumption that they difbelieved the Trinity and denied the Scriptures, and would therefore fcruple to accede to it. If the principle on which this claufe was formed, betrayed ignorance of the fentiments of the quakers, it must be owned to have reflected credit on their fincerity and fortitude; implying a perfuafion that they would not, through fear of fuffering, be betrayed into prevarication and falsehood.

The article proposed to be inferted in the bill was this: "I A. B. do profefs faith in God the Father, "and in Jefus Christ his eternal Son, the true God, "and in the Holy Spirit, coequal with the Father and "his Son,one God blessed for ever: And do acknow"ledge the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Tel"tament to be the revealed will and word of GOD." The Friends who attended the Parliament objected,

on feveral grounds, to this confeffion. One was this: that the phrase the word of God, being applied to the books or writings of the Old and New Testament, had a fenfe given it different from that in which the fcriptures themselves ufe it, viz. "the word that "was from the beginning, that was with GOD, and "that was GOD." A more enlarged principle of objection to it was, that they did not efteem themfelves obliged to receive for doctrine the invented terms or commandments of men; though they were ready to testify their faith in the Trinity, and in the fcriptures, according to fcripture teftimony. At the advice of Sir Thomas Clarges and other Members of the Houfe, who were friendly to them, they propofed a profeffion drawn up in the following terms: "I A. B. profefs faith in God the Father, " and in Jefus Christ his eternal Son, the true God, "and in the Holy Spirit, one God blessed for ever: "And do acknowledge the Holy Scriptures of the "Old and New Teftament to be given by divine

infpiration." It may escape the penetration of fome to difcern any material difference between these two formularies of faith, or to exculpate the latter, any more than the proposed form, from the imputation of being exhibited in the invented terms or commandments of men. But it was a form of their own drawing up, and fatisfied the fcruples of their minds. Sir Thomas Clarges prefented it to the House; and moved, in a Committee of the whole House, that this profeffion of faith fhould be admitted and substituted for the former. The mem

bers of the Society of Friends who were in waiting, viz. Mr. George Whitehead, Mr. John Vaughton, Mr. Wm. Mead, and Mr. John Ofgood, were called in and examined. Their anfwers gave the House fuch fatisfaction as to their belief in thofe points comprehended in the formulary, as fecured the end of their attendance, and obtained the relief which they folicited; for their propofed profeffion was incorporated into the Act of Toleration: Whereas it enjoined and required from the minifters and preachers, from all in holy orders, or pretended holy orders, among the other denominations of diffenters, an approbation of and subscription to the thirty-nine articles, except the 34th, 35th, and 36th, and a clause in the 20th; and, in indulgence to thofe who fcruple the baptizing of infants, that part of the 27th article, which teaches infant baptifm.

In another inftance this A&t of Toleration was modelled with a peculiar and tender regard to the fcrupulofity of the Society of Friends. They, it is well known, entertain a confcientious fcruple against taking any oath: in the room, therefore, of the oaths mentioned in the Act, and required of other diffenters, as a condition of their title to the benefit of it, the people called Quakers were allowed, as the term of their claim to the advantages of it, to fubfcribe the following declaration only, viz.

"I A. B. do fincerely promife and folemnly "declare, before GOD and the world, that I will be "true and faithful to King William and Queen Mary. And I folemnly profess and declare, that