A Biography of Thomas Smith

Vicar of Caldecote, Cambs

1650—1661

By Owen Kember

With Appendices on early Quakers in Cambridge

Introduction

Given the ubiquity of the name throughout England, it is no surprise to find that there have been several Smiths associated with the church of St Michael and All Angels, Caldecote, a small parish some 6 miles west of Cambridge. The church, which is reputed to be on the site of a pagan Saxon shrine and to have been visited (and perhaps settled) by the conquering Danes c. 875 on their way up the Bourn Brook [see endnote 1] probably dates from the early thirteenth century. It was held by Barnwell priory until the Dissolution (1538) and in 1543 the living was given to Christ's College Cambridge. Hereafter a succession of vicars was appointed by Christ's College until in November 1650 a certain Thomas Smith was appointed vicar. Smith's exploits, speeches and writings had a far-reaching significance not only for Caldecote itself but also for Cambridge and indeed the whole country.

Early life

The details of Smith's early life are given by Thomas Peile (in his biographies of fellows of Christ's College) and also by Venn (in his biographies of Cambridge graduates). From these we learn that Thomas Smith was born in London in 1624, son of Thomas, and that he attended St Pauls School for ten years under Mr Gill. On 26 March 1640, aged 16, he was admitted as sizar to Christ's College, Cambridge, with William Moore (of Caius) standing surety. He held an exhibition from St Pauls School for 1639-43 and 1646-52, and achieved his B.A. in 1643/4. Three years later (in 1647) he gained his M.A.

From his will (see below) it would seem that his family came from Newborough in Staffordshire and that he had a sister named Esther (who was still alive in 1660).

Ordained and becomes vicar of Caldecote

Smith tells us himself that he was ordained by Bishop John Hall (at some date between 1647 and 1648) and in November 1650 he became vicar of Caldecote. An entry in the Caldecote Register (in his own handwriting) on 26 October 1658 confirms this:

Thomas Smith STB Christ's Coll. Praelector Rhetoricus inductus fuit mense Nov. 1650. Haec scripsi caelebs anno aetatis meae 34, Anno Christi 1658 Oct. 26, hoc est ipso die quo per singulos annos Consecratio Templi hui(u)sce celebrari solita.

Tollat Misericors Deus Schisma heresim Atheismum, Sacrilegium, Da pacem, Domine, in diebus nostris. Usque quo, bone Deus? Ubi quid datur Oti Illudo chartis.

T.S.

Thomas Smith STB, praelector in rhetoric at Christ's College (Cambridge) was instituted (as vicar of Caldecote) in the month of November 1650. I, a bachelor, have written these things in the thirty-fourth year of my life, in the year of Christ 1658, 26th October, i.e. on that very day on which the consecration of this holy place has been accustomed to be celebrated each year.

May the merciful God raise the schism, heresy, atheism and sacrilege. Grant peace, O Lord, in our days. Up to what end, O Good Lord? Where a period of leisure is granted, I (shall) write in the parchments.

T.S.

In fact Thomas Smith followed a certain George Biker (who was not in orders) to the living at Caldecote (after the period of the Civil War and Cromwell's action). Biker himself came to the living after Thomas Sanders (who had been vicar since 1638/9) was ejected from Caldecote in 1644.

It would appear that Smith resided at the rectory at Caldecote - the same rectory which had been seriously damaged by fire in 1604 and probably rebuilt by Matthew Ward rector of Caldecote from 1608 until his death on 15 March 1638. This rectory, with its remnants of an earlier monastic life, is still to be found just to the north of the church, although since 1959 it has been in private hands.

Early publications

In 1651 Smith's name appears on the preface of a translation (A Treatise Concerning the Right Use of the Fathers) of a French work (Traicte de l'employ des Seincts Peres) by Jean Daille. The preface is dated 1 August 1651 and has the words: "it was the reading of this rationall book which first convinced me that my study in the French language was not ill employed, which hath also enabled mee to commend this to the world, as faithfully translated by a judicious hand". It would therefore seem that Smith himself did not produce the actual translation on this occasion. In 1653, however, he does seem to have himself translated a second work of Daille's, entitled An Apologie for the Reformed Churches. The preface has the heading "The Judgement of An University-Man, concerning Mr. Knot's last book against Mr. Chillingworth" and refers to Knot's Infidelity Unmask'd (Ghent, 1652). In the preface Smith says that the work "was translated several years since, at the urgency of some learned friends, whose judgement concerning the acuteness of it, I had more reason to trust than my own". Smith confides that he had decided to publish it now because he believed that there had been a dangerous increase in popery in England and "of whole Parishes fain off to Popery, since the Ministers have been cast out; and yet many men ask, "WHAT NEED OF A CLERGY?". Was this a reference, perhaps, to his own parish of Caldecote, where the minister, Thomas Sanders, had been ejected in 1644 and replaced by George Biker (not in orders)?

A chance of a post with Lady Shirley declined

In 1657 Henry Hammond, one of the survivors of the Tew circle which attempted to define and defend a moderate rational Anglicanism offered Thomas Smith the position of chaplain and tutor in the household of Lady Shirley. Smith, however, was in poor health and needed a rest, so declined the opportunity to leave Cambridge. Henry Hammond was also one of Brian Walton's principal assistants for the Polyglott Bible (on which as we shall see, Thomas Smith himself worked) and Smith and Hammond undoubtedly knew each other well. Hammond himself incidentally used the so-called Codex Bezae (a manuscript of the Greek New Testament) in his Paraphrase and Annotations upon all the books of the New Testament (1653).

Dispute with Robert Peast, a parishioner of Cambridge

On 6 November 1657 Dr John Worthington (who had been elected Vice Chancellor of Cambridge University on 4 November 1657) entered in his diary (edited by J. Crossley [Manchester, 1847]) that "he kept court" in the afternoon:

Upon the same day, it was desired, that I should give sentence upon the case, depending betwixt Mr. Tho. Smith of Christ's Coll. & Robt. Peast of Caldicote. But Mr. Twelves desired, that exceptions might be put in the next Court Day.

These "exceptions" were indeed put in by Mr. Twelves, Proctor to Peast on 13 November 1657 and the next we hear of the incident is under Worthington's entry for 19 November (two days later):

I kept a Court; I was told there by Mr. Twelves, that the suit between Mr. Smyth, & one Mr. Peast of Caldicot (his parishioner) was ended betwixt them. I had on Wednesday spoken to Mr. Smyth, wishing that an end of that controversy might be made.

There is no other record of this dispute between Peast and Smith, although it might be speculated that since Peast was a farmer and Smith the Rector in Caldecote it is not inconceivable that the matter concerned tithes in some way.

Work on Arabic manuscripts

Under an entry for 29 May 1658 Worthington also records:

I received of Mr. Smyth of Christ's Coll. that ancient book, the Syriac Version of the Prophets &c. & did deliver to him Dr. Walton's bond of 200 lib for the book wch was borrowed of the University in Dr. Lightfoot's year.

Smith had been one of Walton's assistants in producing an edition of the Polyglott Bible, acting as his Cambridge intermediary. Walton had requested that the Syriac lexicon which he had borrowed "be delivered to Mr. Smith, whom I have entreated to take special care in the sending of it". Thus it was that Smith, as Worthington notes, returned the Syriac Version of the Prophets to the Library on 29 May 1658 and received in exchange the £200 bond which Walton had given against its safe return in 1655.

University Librarian

The diary of John Worthington also reveals that on 17 April 1659 the University Librarian, William Moore (of Caius) died. Exactly a week later (on 24 April 1659) Smith preached a funeral sermon in honour of Moore in Great St. Mary's Church, Cambridge. This was later printed and edited by Charles Bertie (The Life and Death of Mr William Moore, Late Fellow of Caius Colledge, and Keeper of the University-Library: As it was delivered in a Sermon preached at his funeral-solemnity, April 24, 1659. In St. Maries Church in Cambridge; by Tho. Smith, B.D., his successour, John Field, Cambridge, 1660).

In the sermon Smith reminded his congregation of the claims of the Church of England, noting that Moore had not been buried in his own college because the master, Mr Dell, "would not suffer him to be buried by the Liturgy, which was his last request". Smith described Moore as learned in "all ingenuous sciences, especially History and all kinds of Antiquity (which, if any thing, must bring the men of this age to their wits again, when all is done"; he also praised Moore for

sticking close to that faith into which he was baptized, the true ancient, catholick, and Apostolick Church of England, whose doctrine is contained in the 39 articles, the book of Homilies, and our own LITURGY, which he looked upon as the onely probably medium to re-unite the shatter'd pieces of decaying Christendome. In this Religion he lived, and in this he died, commending his soul (in my hearing) to God with a loud voice...

Five days later Worthington records in his diary for 29 April 1659 "Mr. Tho. Smith of Christ's Coll. was chosen Library Keeper".

John Oates (Cambridge University Library: A History, vol. 1 [Cambridge, 1986], pp. 300-3) discusses Smith's short (1659-61) tenure as University Librarian and quotes in particular from a letter which Smith wrote to Joseph Williamson at Queen's College, Oxford on 3 September 1659:

I lately recd 2 letters from yu concerning a MS in Benet College. Immediately I went to yr College to enquire for it: & staid there 3 houres before I could get ye 3 persons together yt have ye 3 keyes of that library. And wn they were come together old Mr Dobson said yt he was to preach a fast sermon ye week following in sa country church within a mile of Cambridge & till that was over he could not spare any time I entreated him to spare any time. I entreated him to spare half an hour: for that I could dispatch. He was obstinate & angry with me & ye rest of ye Fellows for endeavouring to perswade him. So twas put of till last Thursday on wch day we were almost as long in getting ye keyes together as before. With much [trouble] I found ye book (for ye MSS are not placed in ye order of James's catalogue) & I desired to borrow it into their Masters lodge to transcribe it being but 16 leaves in 4o. I was answered by all ye 3. yt that could not be granted me or any els without a meeting of Mr & Fellows: & when that meeting may be they know not. Then I desired to know wt MSSS they had in yt library ac were not in ye James's catalogue, but brought in to ym since (for I desire to publish an appendix of MSS to his for or whole University) but they told me Mr Dobson could not stay so long as to search that I must come again Aug. 6 yt is a yeer hence...

Confrontation with John Bunyan at Toft

In May 1659 John Bunyan (of Pilgrims Progress fame) preached in the tithe barn (near the village green) of his friend Daniel Angier at Toft . Known as the "tinker", Bunyan's holy orders and his right to preach were always being questioned (he was a member of the so-called Bedford Church). Thus when Thomas Smith "attracted by the sound of devotion" walked in on the service towards the end of the sermon there was bound to be trouble. Bunyan was preaching from 1 Tim. 4:16 and was actually stating that he knew most of his audience were unbelievers. When the service ended, Smith approached Bunyan and asked him what right he had to call the people of Toft unbelievers (half of whose faces he had never seen before). Smith claimed that Bunyan was being uncharitable and as such was unfit to preach. Bunyan replied that when Christ preached from a ship to his hearers on the shore, he taught that there were four kinds of ground onto which the good seed of the sower fell and that only one of the four brought forth fruit. Your position", said Bunyan, "is that he in effect condemneth the greater part of his hearers hath no charity, and is therefore not fit to preach the gospel." At this Daniel Angier rose to defend Bunyan and rebuke Smith, but Smith denied the layman's right to preach and asked Bunyan how he could answer the apostle's question "How shall they preach except they be sent?" Bunyan replied that the Church at Bedford had sent him, to whom Smith responded that the Church at Bedford since they were only lay people could not give the tinker that which they had not themselves.

Letter to Mr E. of Toft

Within a few weeks Smith had written and published a pamphlet entitled "A Letter to Mr. E of Taft [sic] Four miles from Cambridge!. To which No Answer hath been returned". Mr E. is presumed to refer to Mr John Ellis Junior, son of John Ellis, the minister of Toft. The pamphlet begins:

Sir,

1. Since you had not so much patience as to hear me t'other day, nor would suffer your daughters to tarry, I now make use of my first hour of leisure to write to you part of that which you might have heard me speak then; Hoping that you and they (whom I look on as having more breeding than any other, his Auditors that I saw) will not believe this, whom his Friends generally call the Tinker, upon his bare word, but like those noble Bereans, Acts 17.11 with readiness of mind search the Scripture whether those things were so.

2. I guess at the breeding of most of his followers by this passage; one of them, viz. Daniel Angier (who invites him to that Town, entertains him in his house, lends him his barn for a meeting place) when I charged him in that place with maintaining that God was body, (viz. that he had hands, feet, a face, &c. Like one of us) saying that he contradicted me in my Churchyard, after I had preached people when he saw his Ring-Leader T. would not defend it, that I lyed; whereas my whole Parish are ready to witness the truth of what I said.

3. But to the purpose, I shall in this paper follow that method which the T. commanded me (though I desire the contrary) shewing first his false doctrine and then prove 'tis a dangerous sin in him to preach (as he did publickly) and in the people to hear him...

All this your tinker hath been guilty of, and much more, for he hath intruded into the pulpits in these parts, and caused the people of your town to hate their lawful minister, but (as he told me) encouraged them to proceed as far as to cudgel him and break open the church doors by violence...

Smith concludes:

And now, sir, let me beseech you for God's sake, for Christ's sake, for the Church's sake, for your reputation's sake, for your children's sake, for your country's sake to consider these things sadly and seriously, not to think a thinker more infallible than the pure Spouse of Christ, and to foresee what will be the sad consequences both to the souls, and bodies, and estates of you and your children in following such strangers.

The pamphlet is written from "Caucat" (i.e. Caldecote) and dated May (1659). Margaret Spufford (Contrasting Communities, Cambridge, 1974) concludes:

The implication of Smith's pamphlet is that he had been visited in his own parish and heckled there, after a sermon by Angier. Smith returned the compliment and invaded the Angier barn at Toft, where he was called a liar for his pains.

Smith certainly states that Angier had preached in the churchyard at Caldecote (Smith's parish church) and that "the whole parish" of Caldecote was ready to back him (Smith) up against Angier's accusations.

A reply from Henry Denne

Bunyan himself does not seem to have replied to this pamphlet, but there was a response from Henry Denne, a colleague (and friend) of Smith's at Cambridge University. For in a work known as The Quaker No Papist (London: Francis Smith, 1659) Denne wrote:

You seem to be angry with the tinker because he strives to mend souls as well as kettles and pans. The main drift of your letter is to prove that none may preach except they be sent. Sir, I think him unworthy of the name of a tinker that affirms that any one is sufficient to preach the gospel without sending. By your conferssion the tinker thinks otherwise, and doth not deny what you labour to prove, and so you contend with a shadow. He proves his mission and commission from the Church at Bedford, you should also have proved that Mr. Thomas Smith hath a better commission from some other Church than the tinker either hath or can have from the Church at Bedford. You must give me leave to propound something for your consideration: Some shipwrackt men, swimming to an island, find there many inhabitants, to whom they preach; the heathen hearing are converted, and walk together in love, praising the Lord; whether the preaching of these shipwrackt men were a sin? Secondly whether it be not lawful for this congregation to chuse to themselves pastors, governours, teachers, &c. ? Thirdly, whether this congregation may not find some fitting men full of faith and the Holy Ghost to preach to other unbelieving heathen?

An encounter with a Quaker called George Whitehead in London in May 1659

Soon after his encounter with John Bunyan (a Baptist) in Toft, Smith went to London (perhaps to supervise the printing of his pamphlet "A letter to Mr. E....") and there in May 1659 he had his first encounter with the Quaker called George Whitehead. Smith recalls the incident in The Quaker Disarm'd:

In May last this Scholar [i.e. Smith himself] walking over from the Palace Yard about his necessary occasions chanced to see a great magnitude of People over against Westminister Hall encompassed with Souldiers in red coates. Drawing neer he heard Whitehead preaching against Universities, Learning, and Tithes, and the Clergy; and askt him the same question, who said No, No. Another Souldier that stood neer him, said, hold thy tongue or Ile stop thy mouth.

So the Scholar held his peace till W. had done his railing against the Priests. Then the People cried out with one voice, Let the Gentleman speak, let the Gentleman speak. Whereupon the Scholar stood up, and used such arguments in few words against W. (in answer to which, W. said nothing; but another Q stood up and prayed) that all the People showed.

Smith was destined to encounter Whitehead again, in Cambridge, in the near future, but for the moment he returned to Cambridge.

Whitehead's own account of the encounter is given in his Christian Progress:

I remember I had a Meeting at Stephen Hart's, by the Palace-Yard at Westminister, which was a throng'd Meeting, more than the Room could well contain, of our Friends, and other People, of divers Sorts and Ranks. The meeting continmued quiet until near the latter End, and the People appeared generally well satisfied with the clear and plain Testimony the Lord enabled me to bear.

At last, a Priest, one Thomas Smith of Cambridge, Keeper of the University Library, stood up, and made Opposition, with a Charge against the Quakers, as being Hereticks, such as bring in damnable Heresies, even denying the Lord that brought them, applying and perverting that Scripture, 2 Pet. ii.1. But could not produce any Proof, or Colour of Proof against the Quakers, (or any of us) of any such Heresy, or Denial of the Lord that bought us, (who have himself a Ransome for us and for all Men) either by our own Doctrine or Conversation: Contrarywise we were, and still are deeply obliged to confess him both in himself for us, to redeem us from all Iniquity, and for his Light and Grace given us for that End, that we might receive and experience that Redemption throughh his Blood, which he obtained for us: Therefore Blessed be his Glorious Name, we are far from denying the Lord that bought us.

The said Priest being more confident and loud in his Charge, than Proof, and there being a Denial of Christ the Lord in Practice, as well as in Doctrine, I turned the same Scripture, 2. Pet. ch. ii. upon the Priest which he brought against me, and my Friends called Quakers, reading to the People, several Verses of the same Scripture, to shew what Teachers they were who denied the Lord that bought them, whose Ways were pernicious, Verse 2. And many shall follow their pernicious Ways, by Reason of whom, the Way of Truth shall be evil spoken of, Verse 3. And through Covetousness shall they with feigned words make Merchandize of you, whose Judgment now of a long Time lingereth not, and their Damnation slumbereth not. And Verse 14. Having Eyes full of Adultery that cannot cease from Sin, beguiling unstable Souls; an Heart they have exercised with covetous Practices; cursed children Ver. 15 which have forsaken the right Way, following the Way of Balaam the son of Bofor, who loved the Wages of unrighteousness, &c.

Upon my urging these Scriptures, 2. Pet. ch. ii, against the covetous Priest's Practices, which are against Christ and his Doctrine, and consequently a denying of him, as also against their Doctrine whereby they teach. That no Man can be free from Sin in this Life, insomuch that they cannot cease from Sin, while they believe they cannot (or may not) be freed from it in this Life, hereby they also deny the Lord that bought them, in their denying the End and Purpose of his purchasing, or redeeming Mankind, and of his being made manifest, to destroy the Works of the Devil, and to reduce us from all Iniquity, for which End he gave himself for us. See 1 Joh. ch. 3. Titus ch. 2.

I say, upon my urging the Scriptures cited before, against the covetous Practices of Priests, and their not ceasing from Sin (but rather arguing for it) in this Life, our Disopute at that time soon came to an end, the Priest had enough of it, and for his unjustly charging the Quakers with damnable Heresies; even as unjustly as the Persecuting Papists were wont to brand the Martyrs, with their being Hereticks when they were minded to murther or destroy them. But the controversy did not end here; the said Library Keeper some Time after had a mind to try his Strength and Skill further against us.

The Margaret Pryor witch/horse incident

In July 1659 Widow Morlin, a Quakeress of Cambridge, was indicted by the Grand Jury and brought to trial before Judge Williams at the mid-summer assizes at Cambridge. Widow Morlin was acquitted but the story of her alleged "crime" made headline news in the "tabloid" press and literature of the day. As with all such stories, names and actions became distorted and the actual woman whom Widow Morlin was accused of harming by witchcraft (Margart Pryor) mysteriously became "Mary Philips" in some versions. A pamphlet entitled Strange & Terrible Newes from Cambridge (London, 1659) reads as follows:

...as manifestly appears in the case of Mary Philips, who falling from the Church of England, entered into the Society of Robert Dickson, and Jane Cranaway, two unrefined Quakers, but after a few weeks expired, she declined their ways, utterly renouncing them, and detesting their actions; insomuch that they adjudged her to be in a Reprobate Conditiion, and not worthy of an Earthly Being; but rather a Transfiguration from the Glorious Image she was created in; which (poor soul) she was soon divested of, even in the Night, as she betook herself to rest with her Husband, being bewitched or enchanted out of the Room where she lay, and transformed into the perfect shape of a Mare, and so rid from Dinton [?Ditton] to a Town within four miles of Cambridge, where a company of seeming Quakers were met; But upon the aforesaid Inchanting Witches alighting off, and hanging the Bridle upon her Pails, the snaffle (or Bitt) came out of her mouth, and miraculously she appeared in her created Form and Likeness, to the great astonishment of the Neighbors, who beheld this unexpected change with abundance of astonishment; and upon the Womans declaring of her self, and the state of her Condition, she went along with some Officers to the Meeting, and coming into the Room, she pointed to the two Quakers, saying, This is the Man and Woman that betwitcht me: Whereupon they were apprehended, and carried before a justice, who committed them to safe Custody, there to remain until the Assizes, which on Thursday last began at Cambridge, and on Friday they were brought to Trial, where the Woman that was bewicht made Oath against them, and shewed her hands and feet, which were lamentably bruised, and changed as black as a Coal, her sides also being exceedingly rent and torn, just as if they were spur-gal'd, and her smock all bloudy: Evident signs of her sad sufferings; yet utterly denied by the prisoners, who at last were cleared, notwithstanding the Grand Jury finding the Bill of Indictment.

Alderman Blackley, one of the most prominent Quakers in Cambridge published a pamphlet entitled A lying Wonder discovered on 8 August 1659 in which he made the whole incident much clearer. He notes that after withdrawing her charges against William Allen, one of the Quaker equestrians, Margaret Pryor (not Mary Philips) had reaffirmed before the court her accusation of Widow Morlin, who on 20 November 1657 had taken her out of bed from her husband in the night, "put a bridle into her mouth, and transformed her into a bay mare, and rode her to Maddenly [Madingley] House, where she said they hung her on the latch of the door, and that they went in to the Feast, where she said they had Mutton, Rabbets and Lamb". Blackley noted the inconsistencies in Pryor's story. In answer to the judge's question of whether her hands and feet had not been sore or dirty, she replied only her hind feet. Moreover, it was noted that lamb was out of season in November. The jury apparently took only 15 minutes to acquit Widow Morlin.

Bunyan's role in the affair seems to have been to encourage Margaret Pryor to take Widow Morlin to court. He was accused himself by Blackley of slandering the Quakers and of wanting to have the Widow destroyed by rope or fire as a witch.

The second encounter with Whitehead (in Cambridge)

I have inserted the details of this incident to illustrate the feeling against Quakers in Cambridge at the time, a feeling in which (strangely) both Thomas Smith and John Bunyan were united. Smith indeed recounts in A Quaker Disarm'd a second encounter with the Quaker George Whitehead on 25 August 1659:

The same S. [Thomas Smith] having been all the Afternoon (from one a clock till four or five) in St. Johns Coll. Library turning over Arabick and other MSS. returning hom wearied his nearest way, unexpectedly saw the same Whitehead preaching in the Quaker common meeting-house. So he went in, desired leave to speak; and when (Whitehead had done) confuted his Doctrine.

The next day (26 August 1659) Smith "considering how apt silly Women were to be led away captive by such deceivers" wrote to the Mayor of Cambridge saying that he wished to dispute publicly with Whitehead, and prove that his doctrines were heretical. He added that it was a "damnable sin" for Whitehead to preach and for anyone to listen.

The Mayor's wife was a Quaker and had apparently convinced her husband of the truth of her convictions, so much so that a Quaker is said "to have been moved by the Lord to discard his garments and, to the confusion of the profane, to pace naked through the streets of Cambridge".

Smith's public debate with the Quakers

Whitehead and his fellow Quakers, William Allen (who had been accused of being one of the equestrians who rode off with Margaret Pryor) and George Fox promptly accepted Smith's challenge and the debate was held soon after in the Friend's Meeting-house in Jesus Lane, Cambridge.

Paul Hammond ("Thomas Smith: a beleagued humanist of the interregnum", Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 56 [1983], 180-94) has discussed the actual debate in detail, so only the main points need to be stressed. It seems that Smith began by endeavouring to prove that Whitehead "opens the door to damnable heresies" by means of a syllogism, e.g. he stated that "All Papists open a door to damnable heresies. You...are a Papist. Therefore...you open the door to damnable heresies". After some dispute about the use of such syllogisms, Whitehead denied that he was a Papist. Smith tried another syllogism ("He who refuseth to take the oath of abjuration is a Papist. You...refuse to take the oath of abjuration. Therefore [you are]...a Papist." Whitehead again denied this and justified his refusal to swear by quoting Math. 5:34. Further syllogisms were put forward by Smith based on the "commission of Christ" ("He who pretends to be an ambassadour of Christ and hath no commission to show but what all the damnable Hereticks in the world do or may shew, that man opens a door to damnable Hereticks"). When Whitehead denied Smith's syllogism, Smith reported (in The Quaker Disarm'd) that "almost all the Company laught, shouted, stamped and hissed". After another series of syllogisms the debate centred on the Trinity and Fox challenged Smith to prove that there are three persons. Smith adopted the argument that The Father, Son and Holy Ghost are mentioned in three places and are therefore three persons. After briefly debating this, Alderman Blackly interposed and called a halt to proceedings.

The Quaker Disarm'd

Following the debate both Smith and the Quakers produced a series of pamphlets amplifying and extending their arguments in print. Smith was the first to publish his version of the debate and extended arguments in The Quaker Disarm'd (London, 1659). In this the account of the debate is followed by 55 questions put by a certain R.B. [?Richard Blome] to Whitehead and Fox, basically on the theme why the Quakers denied the scripture to be the word of God, rejecting the doctrine of the Trinity and the sacraments of baptism and communion. Whitehead replied with a pamphlet entitled Truth defending the Quakers in which he argued that the scriptures do not mention the word Sacraments and so they are unnecessary for salvation. He also took Smith to task about his views on the Trinity, concluding "Oh! Thomas Smith thou dark sot and dreamer, who thus hath told thy dreams and lying imagination concerning the Godhead...doest thou believe that the Holy Spirit was not in Christ before that John Baptized him in Jordan...?"

Henry Denne, one of Smith's colleagues at the University, produced a second reply to Smith with his pamphlet The Quaker No Papist. Denne questioned Smith's own theological views and especially the assertion that the canon of scripture is received solely on the authority of the "pure Spouse of Christ, the Church of all ages". We have already seen Denne's defence of Bunyan's commission and right to preach at Toft and this formed an integral part of the reply of Smith at this stage.

A Gagg for the Quakers

Smith immediately replied with a further pamphlet entitled A Gagg for the Quakers in which he cited innumerable pamphlets from both English and continental theologians and referred Denne to read these pamphlets and thereby gain an answer to his questions. He also charged Whitehead with a Popish tendency, reprinting R.B.'s 55 questions and a highly edited version of Whitehead's replies.

Whitehead himself responded with a further pamphlet (published in 1660) called The Key of Knowledge not found in the University Library of Cambridge, in which he answered the charges of Popism on the Justification by stating that "Justification is in the Righteousness of Christ by the Spirit of God". He says of Smith "thou hast shewn thy self not to be come so far as to common Civility, nor Moral Honesty, in so palpably wronging my Answers to thy Queries, as thou hast done, in perverting my Words, and giving answers for mine in thy own terms". He concludes that "So we see that Priest Smith hath not found the Key of Knowledge in all the Library, nor among all his Books, who is thus ignorant of the gift of God, of the Word of Wisdom, which hath discovered his Wisdom to be meerly natural, sensual and devilish".

In a Gagg for the Quakers Smith relates that he has been appointed to compile a catalogue "which is now ready for the press", of all the manuscripts in Cambridge. Oates (History of Cambridge University Library, vol. 1, p. 301) notes how there is no record of this appointment but mentions that in 1660 the University agreed to encourage Smith's labours by extending to him, in view of the pressure of work in the University Library and his small salary, the exemption from preaching in Great St Mary's enjoyed by the chaplains of Trinity and King's (University Grace Book H, p. 221).

Smith's will

Among Bundle 16 of the Vice Chancellor's Court Wills in the University of Cambridge Archives (1661-6) held in the University Library, West Road, Cambridge is the will of Thomas Smith, written (in his own hand) on 1 November 1660.

In nomine Dei. Amen.

I Thomas Smith Bachelor of Divinity of Christ's College in Cambridge being in perfect health (God be praised) but bearing in mind the saying of the wise man Eccles. 9.12. That man knoweth not his time; but as fishes are taken in an evil net and as birds areb caught in a snare, so are the sons of men caught when death falls suddenly upon them; and not forgetting the advice of wisdome itself Mat xxiv 42.44 Be ready and watch for you know not at what hour the Lord shall come I do think it requisite to set my house in order and do hereby make and constitute this my last will and testament, as followeth:

First of all I profess, and declare that when ever it shall please God to call me out of this life, I desire to dye in the ancient Catholic and Apostolic faith professed in the Church of England, contained in the 39 articles, but more fully in the Augustan confession. And if any thing have been writ or spoken by me not agreeing with this Catholic faith, I desire it may be looked on as not spoken or writ. I commend my soul to God beseeching him to have mercy on me for his son Jesus sake, my body to be interred in the Parish Church wheresoever I shall dye without pomp or sermon but with the Liturgy of the English Church. I bequeath all my worldly goods to Dr John Fell of Christ's Church in Oxford and Mr William Goodman fellow of Kings College in Cambridge to be disposed by them to charitable uses after he hath paid out of them those legacies following. To my Father or Mother ten pounds of lawfull money of England to my sister Esther ten pounds, to Mrs Elizabeth...[illegibly amended] ten pouinds, to her...

[& forty shillings to the Poor of Caldecoat (where I am now Pastor) to be left in the Churchwardens hand yearly, and the rest of it to be...yearly on the 1st of November by the Pastor my successor for ever to buy a new testament for some poor child of the parish or whom he pleases shall think it most charity to bestow it]

that little land which I have at Newborough in Staffordshire I bequeath to my brother Cleophas? because it was left me by my father who hath hitherto had all the rents for it. And my bonds, mony, books & other goods (and lands if I shall have any besides that at Newborough whatsoever I bequeath to the aforesaid Mr Fell my very dear friend, to be disposed to charitable uses as are aforementioned. This I writ with my own hand and sealed with my own seal this first day of November in the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred and sixty; on the feast of All Saints.

Sealed and owned in the presence Tho. Smith

of Rit: Pettit ?thelden (seal)

Four lines_ are expunged because I have don the thing myself, given them 6 h to be kept &c I should not have disposed of so much money & goods besides my books when ever it shall please God to call me (unless some enexpected storm befell the Church or me) both to bury me and pay all the legacies so that Dr John Fell and Mr William Goodman may keep my study of books entire to his own use; getting some bookseller to prize them and bestowing of money at which they shall be prized to charitable uses. But if I leave not money or goods enough (beside books) for the uses aforementioned and refer all to Dr John Fell aforesaid now Dr in Divinity & to Mr William Godman aforementioned fellow of Kings College in Cambridge.

The spelling has mainly been left as in Smith's handwriting. There are many alterations and deletions beside the major one which Smith has himself acknowledged.

Death and burial

In the autumn of 1661 it seems that Smith contracted "the new disease, which spreads all over England" (as Hartlib calls it). Presumably this was some form of plague which was prevalent in Cambridge for most of the seventeenth century. At all events Smith died on 27 September 1661 (aged 37) and was buried soon after at Kingston churchyard. There seems no explanation for him not being buried at Caldecote itself, unless he actually died in Kingston. Whatever the reason, Hartlib (when he heard the news) thought that Smith was "truly to be lamented, being so fit a Keeper of the public library, for there are few of that ability".

Endnotes

1 In a letter written in 1961 to a member of Caldecote Parish Council, the Revd. J. H. Cawte (himself a former rector of Caldecote) stated that "Caldecote is said to be the oldest known Danish settlement, and the Danes came up the Bourn river in their long boats. This may seem strange to those who have only seen the present meagre trickle, but the Cement works which adorn the Kingston side of the brook are built on water-worn gravel. There was almost certainly a Saxon settlement, with a church or pagan temple on the site now occupied by St Michael and All Angels Church. Invaders frequently occupy the old religious sites for their own purposes." I have discussed the implications of this letter and the probability of a late Roman/early Saxon route between the sites of Barton, Comberton, Toft, Caldecote and Bourn churches in detail elsewhere.

2 George Whitehead, The Christian Progress of that ancient Servant and Minister of Jesus Christ George Whitehead Historically Relating His Experience, Ministry, Sufferings, Trials and Service in defence of the Truth and God's Persecuted People, Commonly called Quakers. In four Parts. With a Supplement to the Same. London: Printed and Sold by the Assigns of J. Sowle, at the Bible in George-Yard, Lonbard Street, 1725, pp. 163ff.

Appendix 1

The Quaker disarm'd, or a true relation of a late publick dispute held in Cambridge by three eminent Quakers [i.e. G. Whitehead, G. Fox and W. Allen], against one scholar of Cambridge [i.e. Thomas Smith, the author]. With a letter in defence of the ministry... Also several quaeries proposed (by R B[lome]) to the Quakers to be answered if they can.

[Sig. C. cropped] 4 o, 20 cm. By J.C. London, 1659

THE QUAKER DISARM'D,

OR

A TRUE RELATION

Of a Late Publick

DISPUTE

HELD AT

CAMBRIDGE

___________________________________________________

By Three Eminent QUAKERS, against

One Scholar of Cambridge.

___________________________________________________

WITH

A Letter in Defence of the MINISTRY,

AND AGAINST

LAY PREACHERS

ALSO

Several Quaeries proposed to the Quakers to be

answered if they can.

___________________________________________________

LONDON,

Printed by J.C. and are sold neer the Little North-Door of

S. Pauls Church, 1659.

THE PREFACE.

Before I set down the particulars of this Dispute, it seems not amiss to premise (as an introduction to it) what passed between this Scholar and the forementioned George Whitehead before it.

In May last this Scholar walking over the Palace Yard about his necessary occasions chanced to see a great multitude of People over against Westminster Hall compassed with Souldiers in red coates. Drawing neer he heard Whitehead preaching against Universities, Learning, and Tithes, and the Clergy; and asked some of the red-coates whether he might speak a word? They answered they could not tell. Whereupon he crowded up to Whitehead and askt him the same question, who said No, no. Another Souldier that stood neer him, said, hold thy tongue or Ile stop thy mouth.

So the Scholar held his peace till W. had done his railing against the Priests. Then the People cryed out with one voice, Let the Gentleman speak, let the Gentleman speak. Whereupon the Scholar stood up, and used such arguments in few words against W. (in answer to which, W. said nothing; but another Q stood up and prayed) that all the People showted. Notwithstanding which the Q. going on in his prayer, the people made a hideous shriek to disturbe him. The Quakers all desired the S. to quiet them, telling him they were his followers and Sons of Ishmael. At length the People (seeing that none of the Quakers would attempt to answer the Scholars argument, desired him to come away, lest the Q. should do him a mischief. So he left the Quakers and with him came all the People, leaving a few Souldiers and about a douzen Quakers at their exercise. The Day following, and severall days after the S. went to seek the Quakers at the said house, but found none, and never yet heard that any of them met there since.

But upon Aug. 25 1659. the same S. having been all the Afernoon (from one a clock till four or five) in St. Johns Coll. Library turning over Arabick and other MSS. returning home wearied his neerest way, unexpectedly saw the same Whitehead preaching in the Quaker common meeting-house. So he went in, desired leave to speak: and when Whitehead had done) confuted his Doctrine. Next day, considering how apt silly Women were to be led away captive by such deceivers, he sent this following Note to the Major of Cambridge, hoping in the conclusion to reclaim his Wife, who is a Quaker.

Whereas George Whitehead preacher to the Quakers in Cambridge deliver'd in his Sermon among them Yesterday, 1. That they are not Hereticks, and 2. that they teach no other Doctrine but what Abraham and Christ taught; and 3. afterwards said, that the Scriptures are not the word of God.

I am ready this Day (at any hour or place) to prove the forementioned Doctrine very false, and 3ly. to defend those 3 arguments that I urged against him yesterday, by showing that he neither did, nor can answer any thing to them; and 3ly. to prove by divers other arguments that 'tis a damnable sin for him (or any such man) to preach, and a damnable sin for any man or woman to hear him.

Chr. Coll. Aug. 25. 1659. T.S.

Hereupon the Major sent for Whitehead, who (before him) wrote down the following positions; which he said he would defend against T.S. at what time, and place, the Major should appoint.

1. That we called Quakers is not open a door to damnable Heresies.

2. That we called Quakers are not Hereticks: because

3. We do not teach any Heresy, and

4. We walk not in the steps of Hereticks.

5. That the Bible is not the Word.

These things I will defend against the contrary affirmations of T.S. George Whitehead.

Then he caused these three positions to be write saying he would defend them also.

6. The Scriptures doth not say, If any man say he hath no sin he deceives himself. 7.I

7. I deny that this is truth [If any man say he hath no sin he deceives himself] as concerning the Saints.

8. 'Tis not a Damnable sin, for me or any such man to preach, and for any man or woman to hear us.

On Saturday night Aug. 27. T.S. wondring that he heard nothing of the time and place of meeting, went to the Major to ask what was resolved, who answered, that the Alderman, were not willing it should be in the Town-Hall; So that if there were any Dispute at all it must be in the Quakers common meeting house, but that severall Aldermen were not willing there should be any Dispute, and that he himself would not advise T.S. to Dispute. Whereupon T.S. resolved not to dispute against the minde of the Corporation. Next day Aug. 29 between 12, and 1. a clock came this following Summons to T.S. from W.

Friend, T.S. This is to certifie thee, I am willing to give thee a meeting. And seeing that no other place is appointed, I intend to be at our meeting place (over against Sidney Colledge-gate this day about the 1. or 2d. hour in the afternoon. Where I may expect thy appearance, according to thy promise to me, first to produce thy arguments, &c.

Subscribed G. Whitehead.

Cambridge this 29th. of the 6th Month. 59.

Superscribed for T.S. at that place called, &c.

Immediately the same Person received another Summons from Mr James Alders beginning thus.

Sir, I was called this Morning to Mr. Major, and there I was told that 'tis the desire of the Quakers to meet you, at their house of meeting; they begin to think you are afraid to meet them, &c.

Notwithstanding these T.S. continued in his Chamber, till a Messenger came from Mr Alders to tell him, that the Quakers were met and reported that T.S. did not dare to come. Thereupon he went and found G. Fox preaching. Esteeming it not lawfull to hear him, he left the room, but entred again, as soon as sermon was done. There was some debate where T.S. should stand, and because the Q. would suffer him to take no place but where he should be compassed with Quakers (as G. Whitehead was also) he stood where they appointed him.

THE DISPUTE

As soon as T.S. had taken his place, G.W. made a long speech to tell the people the occasion of that dispute: and that the questions to be discussed were these.

1. Whether it were a Damnable sin for him to preach and 2. a Damnable sin for any to hear him. And charging T.S. with folly for saying that Whitehead was an heretick, and yet confessing that T.S. knew not all W's Opinions. T.S. interposed only this, Mark the word all. I may truly say you hold heresies, if I know only some.

When he had done T.S. said thus Good people; you come not hither to hear sermons and speeches but a dispute. This man hath troubled you with a long discourse wherein he concludes that I must begin at the latter end, which of what consequence it is, all you that have skill in any trade or science know as well as I. I shall not trouble you with many words, but (in short) shall only entreat you to hear him again, Ile read to you his own paper. George Whitehead is this your hand or is it not.

W. I acknowledge it my writing.

5. Ile read his handwriting. So T.S. read it (as 'tis set down before) and then askt the people whether he should take the propositions in order as they were placed in Whiteheads paper or not, who answering Yea Yea. He began thus

1. That we called Quakers do not open a door to damnable Heresies.

2. That we called Quakers are not Hereticks.

Against this your first position I dispute thus.

He that writ this Book gives a door to damnable Heresies (holding forth a Printed Book in his Hand, entituled Ishmael and his Mother cast out.)

You writ this Book, therefore you open a door to damnable Heresies.

Whitehead replyed, I deny it.

S. What do you deny.

W. That you spoke last, I do not open a door to damnable Heresies.

S. That is my conclusion: you should deny one of the Premises.

Here S. gave him the book to look on: and then askt him whether he were the Author of that Book or not?

W. I did not write it all, for there is somewhat scribled in it.

S. True, here are some things writ on the back-side: Ile charge you with nothing but what is printed. Were you the author of all that is printed in this book? Your name is printed both in the beginning midst, and end of it.

W. About three years ago I and four more writ it between us.

S. I pray tell me plainly whether youl own it or not. If youl not own it all, then tell me what you will own, what not. Otherwise when I have proved it a most wicked book, you may disown it, and so all my discourse falls to the Ground. 'Tis no pleasure to me to speak or this people to hear vain words. If you will not own it Speak. But you may as well disown tomorrow all that you say to day (telling us that words are but wind) if you disown that which you have printed and affixt your name so oft unto.

W. Well, I will own it, provce what thou canst.

S. All Papists open a door to damnable Heresies.

You who writ this book are a Papist./

Therefore you who writ this book open a door to damnable heresies.

Fox wisper'd (but loud enough) Martk the Major is Universall.

Whereupon some of the people cryed, down with that black fellow that prompts behind, but S. said, no let them alone. What do you aniwer?

W. I deny. I deny

S. What do you deny? Major or minor?

W. That you spoke last.

S. Repeated the argument again, and W. denyed the conclusion.

S. If you go on to deny my conclusions, I shall do nothing but repeat my Sillogismes: for my Sillogism proves my conclusion.

W. Repeat it then. Here W. Allen a Quaker interposed and made a speech to tell the people that he did not like this way of disputing and bid T.S. dispute plainly with Logick and Syllogismes, and vain termes.

S. Whitehead was the first that mentioned major and minor, and used a Sillogisme tother day to prove Scripture was not the Word of God. Fox said that the Major was universall. It seems they both understand well enough what belongs to a syllogisme. And I think I have not spoke a word which the meanest here doth not understand, and that this way of dispute is liked best by all: if not let them speak.

People. 'Tis very well, very well. We like this way of dispute best of all.

S. My argument is this, All Papists open a door to damnable heresies, you who writ this Book are a Papist. Therefore you who writ this book open a door to damnable heresies.

Alderman blackly. This S. doth nothing but say the same thing again and again. W. I am no Papist.

S. You deny my minor: which I prove thus. He who refuseth to take the oath of abjuration is a Papist. He who writ this book refuseth to take the oath of abjuration. Therefore he who writ this book is a papist.

W. I deny all Popery.

S. A Papist will say so too. I might charge you with many Popish Doctrines; but now I only ask whether you will take the oath of abjuration, or deny one of my propositions?

F. Here Fox who had interposed severall times before made a long discourse to prove that 'twas unlawfull for a Christian to swear. S. did let him run on to the end., and let W. speak after him. Then askt whether any more of that party had ought else to say? all being silent T.S. replyed.

S. I came not hither to dispute with Fopx or Allen; but since you are resolved to dispute three of you against one, I shall reply to you all (yea if there were three hundred, if you speak one at once) which of my propositions do you deny major or minor? For you must deny one unless you'l grant the conclusion that he is a Papist.

F. Prove 'tis lawfull to swear.

S. That is another question: which Ile prove at any seasonable time when ever you shall desire me: but this is no fit season; for we must now stick close to the questions before us.

Peoiple. Yes so so. Do so.

Here the Majors wife entreated T.S. to lay aside Whiteheads book and dispute from Scripture. Well, quoth he I will for wa while: so he gave the book to her, and taking a Bible said.

S. Turn to 2 Cor. 5.20. Where you have these words, Now then we are Embassadours for Christ. From which words I prove that 'tis an appropriate Ministry; proper to some only, not common to all: and therefore that every Christian man and woman is not an Embassadour of Christ, as you G.W. told the people tother day. I frame my argument thus.

He who pretends to be an Embassadour of Christ and hath no Commission to show but what all the damnable hereticks in the world do or may show, that man opens a door to damnable Hereticks. But you pretend to be an Embassadour of Christ and have no commission to show, but what all the damnable Hereticks in the world do or may show. Therefore you open a door to damnable Hereticks.

W. I deny that, prove it.

S. What do you deny?

W. I deny that I open a door to damnable Heresie.

Here almost all the Company laught, shouted, stamped and hissed. And the Quakers asked T.S. if he was not ashamed of his followers. He answered, That none of them were his followers; for he came alone, and brought not one with him: That it was their meeting-House, and therefore more likely to be their followers. So after S. (at the Quakers request) had entreated the people to be quiet, he askt W.

S. Do you profess your self to be an Embassador of Christ, or do you not?

W. Yea I do.

S. Then that you may understand my argument the better (for I perceive you do not yet ken it) I'll illustrate it by a similitude. Suppose we being not at peace with Spain, twelve men should go hence to the King of that Nation, and tell him that they are all sent Embassadors to him from the Parliament of England. He asks them for their Commissions. One of them shows him his Commission in Parchment: and the other 11 tell him they have a Commission, but he must beleeve them on their word: for they cannot show it. Every one of them exclaiming against this man who shows his Commission and against the other for counterfeits: crying loud, that he himself, and he alone is the true Embassador, though he have nothing to prove it by more than the other ten false. In such a case would you not say that these 11 are knaves? Answer. W. and F. and all the rest stood still and said not a word.

S. If it be an heinous sin for any man to pretend a Commission from an earthly Prince or Parliament, when he hath none indeed to show, shall not his crime be incomparably more grievous, his condemnation unspeakably more dreadful, who pretends one from the King of Heaven when he hath none to show? W. I have a commission. S. Show it.

Here W. stood mute: and the people said he was wont to call the Clergie Dumb Dogs; but now he was Dumb himself.

S. Let us hear or see what your commission is. Distinguish that commission which you say you have from that which all the Damnable Hereticks in the World do or may produce for themselves.

Here W. made a long speech to the people. To which S. replyed.

S. You have told us a long storie, whereof I can make neither head nor foot. Iam am sure it concerns my argument no more than if you should tell us, they are now selling apples upon the Market-hill. Tell us, or show us what is your commission. W. I have my commission from Christ.

S. I do not well hear what you say; but I think you told us of another commission the other day from that which you speak of now.

W. I told you then, that I had it from the power of God, and now that I had it from Christ.

S. They differ. For Moses has his commission from the poer of God, yet had it not from Christ: who gave no commission to any before the Twelve Apostles.

Fox. Christ and the Power of God are all one.

Well, we will not discuss any impertinent questions. Whether they be one or not, you do not answer my argument. 'Tis this. He who pretends to be an Embassador of Christ, and hath no Commission to show, but only a talk that he is sent from Christ; he hath none to show but what damnable hereticks do or may show. But you pretend to be an Embassadour of Christ, and have no, &c.

W. Did ever any Heretick pretend a commission from Christ?

S. Yes Dav. George, Socinus, Arius, and all the hereticks I ever read of.

W. They could not prove it by the effects as I can; that is, show the people that they were converted by them.

S. Yes they could. Arians converted a nation of Infidels to Christianity (which is more than you pretend to) and his opinions spread so far among them who before his time were Orthodox, that in short time 'twas said, All the world seemed Arian.

W. But did the hereticks live good lives ?

S. 'Tis confessed by all the Ancients that Arius and his Followers did, by St. Austin that Pelagius did: and I remember no Sect-Master that did not. If you have no commission to show but this, you see that all damnable Hereticks do or may show the same: and so my conclusion remains firm, That you open a door to damnable Heresy.

W. No, I have proved my commission sufficiently, and you have brought nothing against it.

S. Let the people judge of that. You and I do came not hither to be judges in our own cause.

W. You should prove me an heretick: which you do not go about to do.

S. I shall do that when |I come at it. 'Tis the second question. We are not yet come so far, we are yet but at the door of your house. I am proving that you open a door to let in Hereticks. A man may open the door of his house to let them in, and be none himself.

W. I'll prove that I am none my self, and that from Scripture.

S. You come hither to answer and not to oppose; but since (contrary to the rules of dispute) you resolve to do both at once, I'll give you leave; come let us hear your argument.

W. 'Tis taken out of 2 Pet. 2.1, 2. But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false Teachers among you; who privily shall bring in damnable Hereticks, even denying the Lord that brought you, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.

S. (Mark destruction and damnable twice applied to heresie in one Verse)

W. And many shall follow their pernicious wayes, by reason of whom the way of Truth shall be evil spoken of. Hence I prove that I am no Heretick. Observe here, Hereticks are those who deny the Lord that bought them; I do not deny the Lord that bought me; Therefore I am, no Heretick.

S. I deny your major. All Hereticks do not deny the Lord that bought them. The Apostle there instances in one sort of false Teachers, the worst, who would even deny the Lord. Observe the word even: here is a special brand put upon them. It follows not hence that none are false prophets, none false teachers, or (as you would have it) none Hereticks, but those who do deny the Lord that bought them. Prove that. Prove your Major.

W. I have Christ within me; and therefore I do not deny the Lord that bought me.

S. You do not prove your major. I beleeve you do not understand my answer, I'll explain it. Suppose a man lying here sick unto death, will you prove that he is not sick at all, because he hath no plague-sore upon him, or hath no consumption: Because he hath not this or that, or a third disease, therefore hath he none. There be many sorts of Hereticks (the Apostle here mentions damnable Heresies in the plural) as there be of diseased persons. Some deny the Lord that bought them, others not. 'Twill not follow, that because you are not of one sort of these, therefore you be not of the other. Prove your major if you can; if not, give me leave to argue against you from this very text.

Whitehead, Fox, and all the rest here stood silent.

S. Well, beloved, from this very text that he hath brought to prove he is no Heretick, I will demonstrate (which I am sorry that I must do, but you see he thrusts me upon it) that this man is the most damnable Heretick that ever was in the world; and since this Epistle was first writ 'twas never so litterally and plainly fulfill'd in any person as in him this day. [Here the people fecht a deep sigh.] Hear the words again, the two first Verses. There were false prophets also, &c. I begin my Argument from those very words you insisted on, even denying the Lord that bought them, the worst of Hereticks. He that writ this book [Ishmael, &c.] even denyes the Lord that bought him. You writ this book. Therefore you even deny the Lord that bought you.

W. I deny the major.

S. I'll read a few lines of it, and then pursue my major; you write this against Mr Townsend Minister of Norwich. In your second page are these words, Christopher Atkinson, James Lancaster, George Whitehead and Tho. Simonds now in Norwich Goal for their errors and miscarriages - Thee Priest Townsend - thou Dreamer - thou Deceiver - Witch - O thou blinde Guiide, thou enemie of God - without Christ and his knowledge, and in Antichrist.

W. Is the word Witch there?

S. Thou wouldst bewitch the people with thy lies, p. 3. After and many more such good words, he comes p. 10, to speak against the B. Trinity, and hath this passage, p.10. The Three Persons, thou dreamest of (speaking to Mr. T.) which thou wouldest divide out of one, like a Conjurer, are all denyed, and thou shut up with them in perpertual darkness for the lake and the pit. Here the multitude held up their hands and cryed God bless us !

S. See here he saith that he who asserts the three Persons in the ever blessed Trinity is a dreamer, and a conjurer, and that that man shall be damned with that Trinity.

Fox. We do not deny God therefore we are no Hereticks. Atheists deny God, therefore they are hereticks.

S. This man will be apparent again. Atheists are no Hereticks.

F. Are not Atheists Hereticks.

S. No. Atheists are worse then hereticks; but they are not Hereticks. From these words in Whiteheads book now read, I argue thus, He who denies the three persons in the B. Trinity, and calls him dreamer and conjurer who asserts them, saying that a man who saith there be three persons in the Trinity, shall be shut up with them in perpetual darkness (or the lake and the pit), that man is an heretick even denying the Lord that bought him. But you G. Whitehead deny the three persons in the blessed Trinity, &c.

Fox. Here made very long discourse against the Trinity.

S. Beloved you see I let him speak all he can say, I do not disturb them in their speaking as they do me, I am willing to hear him or any of them, speak all; they can for themselves, but I confess it grieves me to hear them speak against the B. Trinity, and I had far rather hear them talk of somewhat else then make declamations against almighty God. I anser, That nothing of this your Speech is to the purpose. What do you answer to the argument ? I repeat it again. He who denies, &c.

Fox run on in another discourse against the three persons.

S. I came not hither to hear you to repeat a deall of stuff out of Paul Beast [who writ against the Trinity, &c.] I came hither to dispute, if youl answer my argument do. If not, say you cannot.

F. Prove that there be three persons.

S. I will.

F. But prove it out of Scripture.

S. I will so (1 John 5.7) There be three that bare record in Heaven; the Father, the Word, and the Spirit, and these three are one.

F. Prove that there be three Persons.

S. I will.

Allen. Prove them to be three Persons plainly without Logicall terms and vain Philosophy, that we may all understand thee.

S. I will, if the Father, Son, and H. Ghost, be three hees, then they are three Persons, but they are three hees.

F. What do you mean by three hees?

S. Three things that may be pointed at, he, and he, and he.

F. I do not like that argument.

S. I would fain give you an argument that you should like, are you three Persons who dispute against me this day, or are you not ?

F. Yea we are three Persons tis plain.

S. Give me now any argument that pleaseth you to prove it; and by the very same argument Ile prove that there be three Persons in the B. Trinity.

F. We are in three places and therefore three Persons.

S. The Father, Son, and H. Ghost, have been in three places and therefore are three Persons. At the baptisme of Christ while Jesus came up, the H. Ghost came down; in the same moment; one ascended out of the water, the other descended to the water, Matt. 3. 16, 17. And Jesus when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water, and loe the Heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the H. Spirit of God descending like a Dove and lighting upon him. And loe a voice from heaven saying this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. In this verse is mention of God the Father in heaven, God the Son coming out of the water, and the H. Ghost descending on this side Heaven like a Dove.

F. Prove there were three persons.

S. I do it thus, If Christ was coming up out of the water while the H. Ghost was coming down to the water, then they were in severall places, but Christ was coming up out of the waters, while the H. Ghost was coming down to the water. Therefore they were in severall places.

F. They have not flesh and bones as we have.

S. What then? I did not promise to prove them to be men, or you to be angels or Gods, but them to be persons: like you only in personality.

F. Persons have flesh and blood as you see we have.

S. I prove that all Persons have not flesh and blood. If God should send this day three Angels from Heaven to prove the truth of Chistian [sic] Religion against you, who deny it; and one of them should stand at one end of your meeting house, another at the other end, and a third in the midst preaching. Would you not say that these three Angels were three Persons? Yet they have not flesh and blood. Speak, would you say they are three Persons, or would you not?

All stood mute, at length one of them said that Angels are not Persons.

S. Tell me what you mean by a person and Ile prove that Angels are persons.

F. A person is a subsistence, We three are three different subsistences.

S. So are the Father, Son, and H. Ghost, if they were in different places, they must needs be different subsistences. You see my argument stands firm, notwithstanding your objection I pass to another argument.

He who denyes the Bible to be the word of God, saying that to assert Scripture to be the word of God, is one of the deceitfull imaginations which the Priests of this generation have deceived the People with; that man is an Heretick; but you deny the Bible to be the word, and tell Mr. Townsend that to assert it is one of the deceitfull imaginations which the Priests of this generation have deceived the People with; Therefore you are an Heretick, see here your own book, p. I, line 1.

Instead of answering this argument about the word of God, they started back to the former about the Trinitie: and Fox said

F. They cannot be three Persons because they were not visible in severall places, I can see that man, and he can see the other.

S. If Christ was man, and the H. Ghost was in the form of a Dove, then they were both seen.

F. Prove that they were in severall places.

S. Christ was seen when the H. Ghost was not seen: therefore they both were seen in severall places, one in the water, the other out of it.

F. Prove that they were seen.

S. If many beheld them both, and their seeing was uipon record (we saw, and they who see it bare record, and we know that ouir record is true) then they were seen. But many beheld them at once; and this their fight was upon record.

F. The H. Ghost could not be seen.

S. If he was in the form of a Dove, then he could be seen: but he was in the form of a Dove.

F. Not in the form of a Dove, but he was in the likeness of a Dove.

Whereat some laughing, he answered again that he was seen, but not visible.

S. Then he was visible and invisible.

F. Yea.

S. Then contradictions may be true at once, then you may be a Quaker and no Quaker, a Papist and no Papist, an Heretick and no Heretick. Hereupon Alderman Blackly who is a Quaker said to T.S. I think 'tis time now to leave off.

S. I think so too: when he saith contradictions may be true at once.

F. I pray take notice all of you that this Book [Ishmaell and his Mother cast out] about which so much hath been, was not writ by me, but by this man, pointing at G. Whitehead.

S. True, but you defended it, I came to despute him, if I had known of your disputing I would have brought one of your Books.

Fox, told S. That he was one of the Beasts of Ephesus, that he was fain to fight with such Beasts as S. Paul did.

S. Answered; that he served a Lord who taught him, to stop the mouths of Gainsayers not with railing but with arguments.

T H E E N D

Appendix 2

Early Quakers and Cambridge

General

Norman Penney (ed.), "The First Publishers of Truth." Being early records (now first printed) of the introduction of Quakerism into the counties of England and Wales (London: Headley Brothers, 1907), pp. 13-15.

No. 4 Cambridgeshire.

Cambridge

Some of the sufferings of the people of god (Called quakers) by the scollers and ther Rude and blood thirsty people off this towne and universitie of Cambridge, breifly Ralated as followeth.

Vpon the 8th day off the 2nd month Called April, 1660, the scollers (who are taught but not off the lord) with other Rude people brake violently upon us into our owne hired house with a malicious spirit, and a VCruell intent in theire hearts, as did appeare by there Cruelly beatinge of us and drawinge of our blood and drawinge off severall off us out by the haire off the head, haueinge Regard neither to old or younge men, or women with Child, but did uery much abuse them by teareing there Cloathes. tumblinge and moileinge diuers in the nasty and loathsome Channells in the streets; and this did the scollers and the Rude multitude unto us, att our meetinge.

Vpon the 13 off the third month followinge (Called May), the unruly scollers and the Rude people came to our owne hired house, and uiolently brake open seuerall doores thereoff, and brake the lockes and bolts with a great hammer, and when our meetinge was ended, we, passinge away to our seuerall outward habitations, was most shamefully abused by the Rude Scollers and the wicked people, seuerall hundreds standiunge in the streets, some beatinge off vs, others Rejoyceing to see us beaten, and neuer a magestrate appeared to suppresse these wicked actions, but Alderman Blackly, which could not pacifie the Rude multitude

James Parnell (1636-56) was born at Retford, Nottinghamshire. He joined Balby separatist group, and then the Friends after a visit to George Fox in Carlisle prison; He preached in Cambridgeshire and Essex, and died at Colchester Castle as a result of falling from a little cell in the dungeon wall, called "the hole", reached by a rope which in his weak state he failed to hold. He wrote 13 tracts.

On 18 May 1655 James Parnell wrote a letter to Francis Howgill and Edward Burrough (quoted by H. Barbour & A. O. Roberts (eds.), Early Quaker Writings, 1650-1700 [Grand Rapids, Michigan: W. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1973], pp. 160-3).

Dear

Friends and brethren. In the eternal unchangeable love and life and the new covenant am I with you, and there do I salute you, where we are one in our measures though ten thousand, all children of one father, brethren and sisters of one family, and heirs of the promise every one, in the measure of the gift of grace given unto us, for to be good stewards therein. And herein doth our joy abound, and is made full in one another. In the light of the new covenant you read me, where I am present with you, and do embrace and salute you, though absent in body; for we, being all begotten by one immortal word and bornage, and we come to bear the one image of our Father, so that hereby we know one another to be the children of our Father, and do see and read and enjoy one another in this same unchangeable covenant of love and light. And here is the blessed union and communion and fellowship, and the glorious liberty of the children of the new covenant, who are sealed down in this everlasting covenant of life. And this is the great riches of the love of God bestowed upon us, that we should be found worthy of this high calling.

Dear Brethren: the letter which I sent you from Cambridge I received with the same that sent it, and did own it as you care and wisdom; and I shortly went into the Isle of Ely, and I had meetings at Ely town, and was moved to go to the steeple[-house]; but the rude people would not suffer me to speak. But mightily by the power of God I was preserved, and I had a great meeting in the town that day; and in much power was I carried forth to the binding and chaining of the heathen and the reaching of the witness; so that many was convinced. But the town is much hardened against the Truth; but yet I see a further work to be done in it. There is a pretty people a coming on at Littleport in the Isle. I remained there a certain space among them, and there is about 60 that are brought to meet together alone in that town. There was one of them was [?] moved to go naked, and to go so to the captain's house, an Independent professor; and the town was much enraged and set him in the stocks all night. And on the first day following I had a meeting at a place called Soam, within 3 miles of Col. Russell's, and there was J. Loud, a priest, gotten up into the seat of the Pharisee; and he was a right Pharisee, for he was much painted [?]; and I was suffered to stay until he had done, and then I was carried out in a mighty power to speak to him and to the people, and which bound them all under; and they was a very great people, and rude; but the power of God was wonderfully seen in delivering me, so that I know not that they gave me a stroke. And the throng was great, so I pressed forth into the yard, and there they made way for me; and I was moved to speak in much power; and they stood even like lambs about me. And at last there came one Robert Hammond, called a Justice, who had been at the steeple-house, and he said that there was a proclamation that all who disturbed the minister in the time of his Public Exercise should be apprehended as disturbers of the peace; so if I would not pass away, he said, I should be apprehended; so I was free to pass from that place. But I told him and the people that I should declare the truth in the town that day. And so upon these conditions I was set free, and I had a great meeting in the town that day; and there was several of the people that belonged to those people at Chippenham; but I heard of none that came out of the town.But those that was there received the truth willingly; and there was many people convinced that day...And there was a man that was moved to come from Littleport, and stood naked among the people in the meeting, as there was of all sorts. But I knew nothing of it until it was done; and many of the world stumbled, and the Enemy got some advantage there; but the people was much silent and quiet, though there was some startling among them of the world. But I was made to clear it much to the people, so that many was satisfied, who had a capacity to receive. But this went to Hammond's ear, and stirred up his spirit against the truth. So the priests and he consulted together against me; and the next nmorning he sent a warrant for me and committed me to Cambridge jail, for speaking to the priest, whereas he had set me free from that among a hundred people. So this was on the last Second Day, that I was come to Cambridge, and there I was put into the low jail, among the thieves... And on the next day, Justice J. Blackley sent out his warrant and set me free from the tyrants' bonds; but I was made very willing to remain, if it had been the Lord's will; but in his large wisdom jhe ordered it according to his good will and pleasure. For I did not motion it unto Blackley, but he did it of his own accord. And the next day I went to a meeting 6 miles from Cambridge, where I met with my dear sisters Anne Blaykling and Dorothy Waugh. They do remain in those parts awhile, but my sudden releasement and going into the country proved very serviceable; for the heathen was much exalted and rejoiced at m,y imprisonment. It is like, if the Lord will, I shall pass shortly back into those parts where I was taken, for there is a people there to be brought forth (I heard Russell was then at London). But the heathen, I perceive, is plotting together to get me into prison again. For the jailer hath been with Blackley about it, and is troubled in mibnd, because he let me go without bail./ And there went into another warrant for me; but according to the good will of God be it as it stands, to his glory. I am content whether in bonds or out of bonds. But I have thoughts to be hereabouts until the next return, if you have movings unto anything. Jollie the scholar_ is come to the town, but he is in little service. He is come to see about some means that is due to him in the College, for they have not yet put him out, and he hath gotten some means of them.

Salute me dearly to my dear brother G.F., and all the rest of my dear brethren and sisters and fellow labourers in the vineyard of thre Lord. Salute me dearly to all my dear and tender hearts whom the Lord hath chosen out of that great city Sodom, for to bear his image, and to glorify his name, and to be as signs and wonders in that old adulterous generation. The Lord God prosper and increase the power to beat down their enemies before them

This from C.B. I shall be glad to hear from

18th day of 3 month George or any of you James Parnell

William Simpson

(William C. Braithwaite, The Beginnings of Quakerism, 2nd edition [Cambridge University Press, 1955], p. 149)

William Simpson, according to a vagrancy pass,_ came from Sunbree, in the county of Lancaster, probably Sunbreak, near Swarthmore, and was of low personage, brown-haired, and aged in 1657 about thirty years. Fox tells us:

He went three years naked and in sackcloth in the days of Oliver and his Parliament, as a Sign to them and to the priests showing how God would strip them of their power, and that they should be as naked as he was, and should be stripped of their benefices. All which came to pass after King Charles the Second came in. And moreover he was made oftentimes to colour his face black, and so black they should be and appear so to people for all their great profession. And then when it came to pass he was made to put on his clothes again who was made before many times to go through markets to priests' houses and to great men's houses and magistrates' houses and to Cambridge stark naked. And the Mayor of Cambridge put his gown about him, being sensible there was something in the thing. And he was made to go through London naked, and he was obedient unto the heavenly command, and often ventured his life and it was given up: who many times did receive many stripes upon his naked body with thorn bushes, so that when his service was done, Friends were forced to pluck the thorns out of his flesh: but he was carried over all by the mighty power of God.

Thomas Ayrey

(Braithwaite, The Beginnings of Quakerism, 2nd edition [Cambridge University Press, 1955], pp. 157-8)

Thomas Ayrey was one of the first six pioneers of the mission to London from the north.

The six started out together at the end of June, but divided their forces in Lancashire. Howgill and Burrough went direct to London, Hubbersthorne spent a fortnight in Oxford on his way, while Audland and Avrey went by Chester and the edge of Wales to Bristol and so to Exeter and Plymouth, reaching London early in August [1654], where plans were laid for more systematic work. Audland's flying visit to the West of England had been encouraging. At Bristol he had spoken at a Baptist and at an Independent meeting, and at Plymouth he was received "of many who were waiting for the Lord's appearance" and stayed four or five days. His companion, Thomas Ayrey, however, like another Mark, began to faint and abandoned the mission, and for the rest of his life was but a weak and faithless man who could not stand to suffer for the truth. Hubbersthorne's experience at Oxford was less promising. Two Quaker girls from Kendal, Elizabeth Fletcher and Elizabeth Leavens, had preceded him by a few days. Elizabeth Fletcher, then a girl of sixteen, and "a very modest, grave young woman, yet contrary to her own will or inclination, in obedience to the Lord, went naked through the streets of that city, as a sign against that hypocritical profession they then made there, being then Presbyterians and Independents, which profession she told them the Lord would strip them of." Their conduct subjected them to savage treatment from the "black tribe of scholars" and to a whipping from the authorities, the mayor refusing to be a consenting party. Hubbersthorne stayed a fortnight, and narrowly escaped similar usage. He was able, however, to distribute Quaker pamphlets and to hold one or two meetings, at which a number of persons were convinced. Six months earlier two friends, Elizabeth Williams and Mary Fisher, had been cruelly flogged at Cambridge, and Elizabeth Williams had been ducked at Oxford. Clearly, in the two universities, the Quaker message, with its scorn of human learning, would only find utterance amid much persecution. Camm, visiting Oxford from London a little later, confined himself to private meetings and escaped ill-treatment. He made a notable convert in Thomas Loe, an Oxford tradesman, who in after years would be the means of William Penn's convincement.

Richard Hubberthorne

(Braithwaite, The Beginnings of Quakerism, 2nd edition [Cambridge University Press, 1955], pp. 162)

The little band of First Publishers met in London early in August to compare their impressions and to decide on further action. It was arranged that Howgill and Burrough should stay in the city, "to maintain the war" there, corresponding with the others, consulting with fresh Publishers from the North, and in a general way supervising the whole Mission. Camm, and Audland would go to Bristol and the West, while Hubberthorne set out for Cambridge and Norwich where others were soon expected to join him.

The work in the eastern counties, the stronghold of the Parliamentary party, may be first considered. A short imprisonment at Cambridge_ prevented Hubberthorne from going forward towards Norwich till October [1654]. At Wymondham he spoke in church after the sermon, and as a result entered Norwich as a prisoner, chiefly for contempt of court in not putting off his hat. George Whitehead, who would prove an indefatigable champion of Quakerism through his long life, reached the city a few weeks later and had liberty till December, when he was imprisoned on similar pretexts. He came from Orton in Westmoreland, and was at this time a young man of about nineteen, who had been convinced at Grayrigg a year or so previously. He was well educated, and had done some teaching._

James Parnell

(Braithwaite, The Beginnings of Quakerism, 2nd edition [Cambridge University Press, 1955], pp. 188-9)

In the neighbouring county of Essex the sufferings of another young man, James Parnell, had a fatal issue. Parnell_ was a well-educated lad from Retford, born there in September 1636, small in height and mean in appearance, but of high zeal and courage. When about fifteen, the power of the Lord was made known in his heart; he turned from the professors and the world, and his relations disowned him. He sought for a people with whom he might have union, and found one, "a few miles from the town where I lived, whom the Lord was a-gathering out of the dark world, to sit down together and wait upon His name." .. In the summer of 1654 he found himself at Cambridge, stirred to visit the university town by the cruel flogging that had befallen his friends Elizabeth Williams and Mary Fisher. There he was thrown into prison for publishing two papers against the corruption of the magistrates and of the priests; but at the second quarter sessions, at the end of September, the jury only found against him that the papers were his, and three days later he was sent out of Cambridge as a vagrant. Six month's work in Cambridgeshire and the neighbourhood led up to fierce disputes with the Baptists at Fen Stanton, and afterwards at Cambridge, Littleport and Ely. In the Isle of Ely, "that island of errors and sectaries,." he had great meetings, marked by his usual impetuous fervour. "In much power was I carried forth to the binding and chaining of the heathen and the reaching of the witness, so that many was convinced.” At Soham he spoke in the church after the minister had done; but a Littleport man created a good deal of offence by going naked as a sign, and Parnell again found himself in Cambridge gaol, though freed the next day by a friendly justice.

George Fox

(Braithwaite, The Beginnings of Quakerism, 2nd edition [Cambridge University Press, 1955], p. 201)

After a short stay in London he [George Fox] went on at the end of the month to the difficult Eastern Counties. At Coggeshhall the justices, who a fortnight before had imprisoned Parnell, rode up fiercely to Fox as he was walking in the fields after a great meeting. George turned and looked at them, and they slunk away. He had large meetings at Colchester, Mendelsham, Wramplingham, and Lynn. Going to Cambridge, the students rose against him, incensed as they were with a man who scouted University learning. Fox's personality again defended him.

"I kept," he says, "on my horseback and rid though them in the Lord's power. Oh! said they, he shines: he glisters: but they unhorsed Captain Amor Stoddart before he could get to the inn...And the people of the house asked me what I would have for supper, as is the usual way of inns. Supper, said I were it not that the Lord's power was over these rude scholars, [it] looked as if they would make a supper of us and pluck us to pieces. For they knew I was so against their trade, which they were there as apprentices to learn, the trade of preaching, that they raged as bad as ever Diana's craftsnmen did against Paul."

William Allen

(Braithwaite, The Beginnings of Quakerism, 2nd edition [Cambridge University Press, 1955], pp. 294-7)

The Rusticus ad Academicos shows the prodigious lengths to which the war between the Quakers and University learning was carried. The dogmatism of the theological expert held England in spiritual bondage. "The Rabbi, armed cap-a-pie with texts of proof, held the pulpit against all comers." There was no ground for mutual understanding between him and the Quaker. To the Puritan divines the "Children of the Light" seemed "poor, deluded, fanatical, silly souls," "uncatechized ignorance set off with great confidence", "unlearned and unstable men of low parts and small capacities" and were looked down upon in the spirit in which the philosophers of Athens looked down upon the babbler Paul, or the Pharisees upon the accursed people whio knew not the law. Friends, on the other hand, fell into the opposite error, and laid exclusive stress on the Light within, till they despised human learning, seeing no good in hireling priests who spoke a divination from their own brain, using their own knowledge of tongues and stealing the words from their neighbours.

When Cromwell in 1657, signed a writ for founding a University at Durham - a project afterwards abandoned on account of petitions from Oxford and Cambridge - Fox met the Protector's emissary, and "let him see that was not the way to make them Christ's ministers, by Hebrew, Greek, and Latin and the seven arts, which all was but the teachings of the natural man...for Peter and John that could not read letters preached the Word, Jesus Christ, which was in the beginning before Babel was.

The rancorous feeling showed itself in extraordinary fashion both at Oxford and Cambridge. We have already noted the rude treatment meted out in 1654 to the first Quaker Publishers at Oxford, and in 1655 at Cambridge to Fox. We may now complete the story, so far as the Commonwealth period is concerned.

It was as early as December 1653 that Mary Fisher and Elizabeth Williams, after reproving some Cambridge students at Sidney-Sussex college gate, had been stripped naked to the waist and brutally flogged at the Market-Cross, their bodies being slashed and torn exceedingly._ In the autumn of 1654, Hubberthorne and Parnell were imprisoned there for a time, and Ann Blaykling, sister to John Blaykling of Draw-well, near Sedbergh, was in prison for several months for disturbing a minister._ While there she was visited by Margaret Killam, wife of John Killam of Balby, who in letters to her husband and George Fox gives a vivid account of the behaviour of the students and townspeople.

Upon the seventh-day I was moved to go into the market, and stand upon the cross and speak there, and so passed through the streets, and was moved to go through the colleges, and it were betwixt the eleventh and twelfth hour, and they was at meat at many of the colleges, and the dread and terrible voice of the Lord passed through me, and they rose up and followed us and thrust us out, and so we passed from one to another through the most of them, but they were not suffered to hurt us: but the rude multitude did throw dirt in our faces, and our clothes were almost covered over, but we did receive little harm for the blows and the stones which they flung, the pain was presently taken away.

For several years there were infrequent imprisonments of Quakers, and the meetings kept by the Friends in their meeting-room in Jesus Lane, over against Sidney-Sussex college, were often turbulent times. In 1658 and 1659 the scholars used to throw stones at the windows and shoot bullets in. William Allen frequently preached, and "they would run through the meeting-house like wild horses, throwing down all before them, halloing, stamping, and making a noise, as if several drums had been beating, to prevent his being heard."_ In April and May 1660, just at the time of the Restoration, there were riotous scenes, especially on three successive Sundays in May. On the third Sunday they broke the doors and windows and beat Friends with the pieces of board, doing great damage and hurt, and followed Friends to the town's end, beating and stoning them. A letter written on the following day by Alderman James Blackley to London Friends, addressed to Gerrard Roberts, deserves reproduction as an absolutely contemporary piece of graphic history.

Cambridge, 28th 3 mo 1660

DEAR FRIEND - My love reacheth unto thee and to all Friends, desiring that prayers be made for us in the Church of Christ, that our faith may be firm and that we may be steadfast and immovable, grounded upon the Rock of Ages, in these shaking times, especially now when the Dragon sends forth his floods of persecution that are ever ready to overwhelm us, if the mighty power of God did not sustain us.

For yesterday, in our meeting-house when we had been together two hours, the soldiers came and set upon us with swords and their staves and brake in upon us and gat smiths' hammers and brake the windows and doors in pieces, and with shivered boards and window-bars fell upon us and beat and wounded many Friends, that few or none did escape without a wound, and haled every one out, and would not suffer one to stay within the house; only I stayed there to see what they would do. And when the house was emptied of friends they brake down all the glass windows, the stairs, the forms, the benches, chairs, etc., whatever could be broken in the house. The soldiers and scholars began and the rude people in the town made an end. Wm. Allen was much beaten and bruised. This is all for the present from thy friend,

JAS. BLACKLEY._

At a General Meeting on the first Monday in July the abuses reached their height. A mob gathered about the meeting-house, some being the worse for drink, and after hustling Friends as they went into the meeting, fell upon them as they were waiting on the Lord.

...striking at those they could reach, flinging at others, and making a hideous noise, with scoffing, laughing, railing, shouting, knocking, drumming upon the boards, and sometimes throwing wildfire and gunpowder into the meeting to drown the sound of that which was spoken to us in the name of the Lord, and continually exercising themselves in one act of mischief or other to make a disturbance and weary us out of the place: and when they saw they could not do it by all those means, they brake and battered down the doors and walls next the street with bolt-hammers and other engines, and...called us rebels... and used us as if our lives were all at their mercies...so that very many of us were sorely hurt and bruised, twenty-two had their blood shed, one so lamed that he was left behind unable to walk abroad, and a woman almost killed by their cruel usage...and [they] quite battered down the walls and bays on each side of the meeting-house.

Meeting on 14 July 1658

(Braithwaite, The Beginnings of Quakerism, 2nd edition [Cambridge University Press, 1955], p. 201)

Parker writes from London to Margaret Fell:

Geo. Fox showed me the letter which thou wrote him concerning the meeting at Scalehouse, and he bid me write to thee that they are going on with the like work in these parts. Tomorrow [14th July 1658] there is to be a meeting at Cambridge for the Eastern Counties: another meeting is to be shortly in or about Bristol for the Western Counties, and another meeting is to be for the Midland Counties as the Lord orders. He is truly sensible of the North, which hath borne the heat of the day, but I perceive [that] he is not altogether against but would have them to be examples to the rest in the freedom of the Lord, and nothing otherwise.

George Whitehead

George Whitehead was born at Sunn-rigg, Westmorland c. 1636. His parents were, it seems, sufficiently prosperous to give him a good education and were Presbyterians. When he was about 14 years old, however, according to his own words, he became a "seeker after the knowledge how to become truly penitent and witness a true amendment of life from such a vain conversation as in my childhood I had (with many others) been prone to".

Endnotes

1 James Jollie of Trinity College, Cambridge, protested against the need for formal ministerial training, and praised the Quaker ministry, "cut his name from the butteries" of the College fellows, but after a day offered to sign on again to teach "any other Art or Science professed there which is not curious but necessary" (Aldam MSS quoted in JFHS, XXV [1928], 54}0012

2 Dev. Ho. Portfolio 5, No. 51. Cf. Camb. Journ. ii. 67. When a person convicted as a vagrant was sent to his home from constable to constable he was to be provided with a pass for purposes of identification. See Norman Penney (ed.), The First Publishers of Truth (London, 1907), p. 347.0012

3 Quoted from First Publishers of Truth, p. 365.0012

4 First Publishers of Truth, p. 266. Ayrer, however, was in London in August (Farnsworth to Margaret Fell, Swarthmore Collection iii. 49), and went to Cambridge (Gervase Benson to Margaret Fell, Swarthmore Collection iv. 35).0012

5 Joseph Besse, Sufferings. A Collection of the Sufferings of the People called Quakers [from 1650 to 1689] (2 vols, London, 1753); First Publishers of Truth, pp. 209, 294. 0012

6 First Publishers of Truth, p. 212. A letter of Howgill of 1 August 1654 (Devon House [Port. 3, No. 83, p. 58]; see also a letter from Hubberthorne written to Margaret Fell in William Caton Collection [Devon House, Jas. Bowden's copy] ) shows that Camm went from London, and that Hubberthorne was making a preliminary visit to Cambridge at the same time.0012

7 Abram Rawlinson Barclay, Letters of Early Friends (London, 1841), p. 150012

8 Hubberthorne to Burrough, Swarthmore Coll iv. 5.0012

9 Christian Progress, pp. 2, 75.0012

10 For Parnell's life see his collected Works, edn. 1675; referebnces in First Publishers of the Truth {Essex); Life of Jas. Parnell, by Charlotte Fell Smith, 1906; article on Parnell by Dr. Thos. Hodgkin in Friends' Quarterly Examiner, July 1906; and sketch of life in Palestine Notes and Other Papers, by Jno. Wilhelm Rowntree, 1906, pp. 126-9.0012

11 Works, p. 2370012

12 Cambridge Journal i. 1900012

13 See Besse, Sufferings, i. 84 and the extract from a letter dated 29th Dec. 1653, printed at the end of Nayler's Churches Gathered against Christ (1654).

14 Hubberthorne to Burrough, 27th Sept. 1654, in Swarth. Coll. iv. 5.0012

15 See letter to her husband in Devon House, Samuel Watson Colln, po. 130 and letter to Fox in Swarthm. Coll. i. 2 from which latter the extract is taken.0012

16 Besse, Sufferings, i. 87. See also Geo. Whitehead's letter to Fox, Chesterton, 11th July 1659, printed in Letters of Early Friends, p. 229 (Swarthmore Coll. v. 92).0012

17 First Publishers of the Truth, pp. 13-15.0012

18 Devon House, Portfolio I, No. 48.0012

19 Besse, Sufferings, i. 87.0012

20 13th July 1658, Caton Colln. copy by Jas. Bowden at Dev. Ho.