[Footnote 1:  Council Order Books, July 3 and Oct. 5, 1655; Merc.  Pol. Sept. 27-Oct. 4, 1655; Wood’s Ath.  III. 599-601; Thomason Catalogue (Tracts for and against Biddle).]

(4) The Quakers. There was immense difficulty with this new sect—­from the fact, as has been already explained, that they had not settled down into mere local groups of individuals, asking toleration for themselves, but were still in open war with all other sects, all other forms of ministry, and prosecuting the war everywhere by itinerant propagandism.  George Fox himself and the best of his followers seem by this time indeed to have given up the method of actually interrupting the regular service in the steeple-houses in order to preach Quakerism; but they were constantly tending to the steeple-houses for the purpose of prophesying there, as was the custom in country-places, after the regular service was over.  Thus, as well as by their conflicts with parsons of every sect wherever they met them, and their rebukings of iniquity on highways and in market-places, not to speak of their obstinate refusals to pay tithes in their own parishes, they were continually getting into the hands of justices of the peace and the assize-judges.  Take as one example of their treatment in superior courts the appearance of William Dewsbury and other Quakers before Judge Atkins at Northampton after they had been half a year in Northampton jail.—­Seeing them at the bar with their hats on, the Judge told the jailor he had a good mind to fine him ten pounds for bringing prisoners into the Court in that fashion, and ordered the hats to be removed by the jailor’s man.  Then, after some preliminary parley, “What is thy name?” said the Judge to Dewsbury, who had made himself spokesman for all.  “Unknown to the World,” said Dewsbury.  “Let us hear what that name is that the World knows not,” said the Judge goodhumouredly.  “It is,” quoth Dewsbury, “known in the light, and none can know it but he that hath it; but the name the world knows me by is William Dewsbury.”  Then to the question of the Judge, “What countryman art thou?” the reply was, “Of the Land of Canaan.”  The Judge remarked that Canaan was far off.  “Nay,” answered Dewsbury, “for all that dwell in God are in the holy city, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from Heaven, where the soul is in rest, and enjoys the love of God in Jesus Christ, in whom the union is with the Father of Light.”  The Judge admitted that to be very true, but asked Dewsbury whether, being an Englishman, he was ashamed of that more prosaic fact.  “Nay,” said Dewsbury, “I am free to declare that my natural birth was in Yorkshire, nine miles from York towards Hull.”  The Judge then said, “You pretend to be extraordinary men, and to have an extraordinary knowledge of God.”  Dewsbury replied, “We witness the work of regeneration to be an extraordinary work, wrought in us by the Spirit of God.”  The conversation then turned on their preaching itinerancy,