deep and ponderous, some months, weeks, and days, concerning this people whom the Lord hath raised to bear testimony to his name, in this the day of his power; and intercession hath been made often for them to the Lord, and a patient waiting to know his mind concerning them for the time to come; which often I received satisfaction in as to myself, but yet something I was drawn by the Lord to wait for, that I might comfort and strengthen his flock by an assured testimony. And whilst I was waiting out of all visible things, and quite out of the world in my spirit, and my heart upon nothing but the living God, the Lord opened the springs of the great deep, and overflowed my whole heart with light and love: and my eyes were as a fountain, because of tears of joy, because of his heritage, of whom he shewed me, and said unto me in a full, fresh, living, power, and a holy, full testimony, so that my heart was ravished therewith in joy unspeakable, and I was out of the body with God in his heavenly paradise, where I saw and felt things unutterable, and beyond all demonstration or speech. At last the life closed with my understanding, and my spirit listened unto him; and the everlasting God said, "Shall I hide any thing from those that seek my face in righteousness? Nay I will manifest it to them that fear me; I will speak, do thou listen, and publish it among all my people, that they may be comforted, and thou satisfied." And thus said the living God of heaven and earth, upon the 28th of the third month, 1662.

"The sun shall leave its shining brightness, and cease to give light to the world; and the moon shall be altogether darkness, and give no light to the night: the stars shall cease to know their office, or place: my covenant with day, night, times and seasons shall sooner come to an end, than the covenant I have made with this people, into which they are entered with me shall end or be broken. Yea though the powers of darkness and hell combine against them, and the jaws of death open its mouth, yet I will deliver them, and lead them through all. I will confound their enemies as I did in Jacob, and scatter them as I did in Israel in the days of fold. I will take their enemies, I will hurl them hither and thither, as stones are hurled in a sling: and the memorial of this nation, which is holy unto me, shall never be rooted out, but shall live through ages, as a cloud of witnesses in generations to come. I have brought them to the birth, yea, I have brought them forth; I have swaddled them, and they are mine. I will nourish them, and carry them as on eagle's wings; and though clouds gather against them, I will make my way through them; though darkness gather together as an heap, and tempests gender, I will scatter them as with an east wind; and nations shall know they are my inheritance, and they shall know I am the living God, who will plead their cause with all that rise up in opposition against them."

"These words are holy, faithful, eternal, good, and true; blessed are they that hear and believe unto the end; and because of them no strength was left in me for a while; but at last my heart was filled with joy, even as when the ark of God was brought from the house of ObedEdom, when David danced before it, and Israel shouted for joy.

"Francis Howgil."

That this writing of. F. Howgil, who was a pious man, of great parts, together with many powerful exhortations of such who valiantly went before, and never left the oppressed flock, tended exceedingly to their encouragement in this hot time of persecution, is certain. For how furious soever their enemies were, yet they continued faithful in supplications and prayers, to God, that he might be pleased to assist them in their upright zeal, who aimed at nothing for self, but from a true fear and reverence before him durst not omit their religious assemblies. And they found that the Lord heard their prayers, insomuch that I remember to have heard one say, that in a meeting where they seemed

B

to be in danger of death from their fierce persecutors, he was as it were ravished, so that he hardly knew whether he was in or out of the body. They then persevering thus in faithfulness, to what they believed the Lord required of them, in process of time, when their enemies had taken such measures, that they were peruaded they had found out means by which they should suppress and extinguish the Quakers, they saw the Lord God Almighty rise up in their defence, and quash and confound the wicked devices of their cruel persecutors, as will be seen in the course of this history.

In the meanwhile let us take a view of the persecution in Southwark. Here the Quakers' meetings were no less disturbed than in London. Several persons, having been taken from their religious meetings, were committed: and after having been in White-lion prison about nine weeks, were brought to the bar where Richard Onslow sat judge of the sessions. The indictment drawn up against them was as followeth.

"The jurors for our lord the king do present upon their oath, that Arthur Fisher, late of the parish of St. Olave, in the borough of Southwark, in the county of Surrey, yeoman; Nathaniel Robinson, of the same, yeoman; John Chandler of the same, yeoman; and others, being wicked dangerous, and seditious, sectaries, and disloyal

persons, and above the age of sixteen years, who on the 29th day of June, in the year of the reign of our lord Charles the second, by the grace of God, king of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, &c. the fourteenth, have obstinately refused, and every one of them hath obstinately refused, to repair unto some church, chapel, or usual place of common prayer, according to the laws and statutes of this kingdom of England, in the like case set forth and provided (after forty days next after the end of the session of parliament, begun and holden at Westminster, on the 29th of February, in the year of our lady Elizabeth, late queen of England, the thirty-fifth, and there continued until the dissolution of the same, being the tenth day of April, in the 35th year abovesaid.) To wit, on the third day of August, in the year of the reign of the said Charles, king of England, the fourteenth abovesaid, in the parish of St. Olave aforesaid, in the borough of Southwark aforesaid, in the county aforesaid, of themselves, did voluntarily and unlawfully join in, and were present at an unlawful assembly, conventicle, and meeting, at the said parish of St. Olave, in the county aforesaid, under colour and pretence of the exercise of religion, against the laws and statutes of this kingdom of England, in contempt of our said lord the king that now is, his laws, and to the evil and dangerous example of all others in