ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



follow out his own particular theories in complete solitude. 1 But 

 besides these less gracious types of Protestantism, there was another 

 of a far more attractive character, which came into existence at 

 this time and represented a really spiritual reaction against the cold 

 formality of both Churchmen and Presbyterians of the period. George 

 Fox and the early Quakers, it will be remembered, were leaders in the 

 first instance of a protest against the rigid Calvinism which, in spite of 

 the teaching of the prayer book and the best Anglican divines, had 

 gained so strange a popularity in England even before the establishment 

 of the Presbyterian system. Thomas Ellwood, in his Autobiography, 

 from which we gain one of the most pleasing pictures of the life of the 

 early Quakers, tells us how he received his first strong impression in 

 their favour at a discussion between his own father and Edward 

 Burrough, a disciple of Fox ; when the latter maintained the offer of 

 universal free grace to all mankind as against the Calvinistic theory of 

 predestination.' And it was during the Commonwealth that the Quakers 

 were first persecuted. In so far as they objected also to all outward 

 forms and ceremonies of religion, and believed in no sacraments of any 

 kind, they were also brought into collision with the Church at the 

 Restoration ; though their curious prejudices against taking oaths, and 

 against petitioning for any sort of relief, brought on them (so it must 

 seem to those who do not share their views) much additional and un- 

 necessary suffering. 



George Fox was in this county as early as 1644," when his ideas 

 were not yet fully developed ; but by 1655 he had quite a large number 

 of followers in several places, as at Newport Pagnel, Wavendon, High 

 Wycombe, Chalfont St. Peter.* Some of their inward inspirations, it 

 must be confessed, led them into actions which would scarcely have 

 passed without censure even in a much more liberal-minded age. At 

 Newport Pagnel in 1655 a woman was imprisoned for interrupting 

 and rebuking the officiant in the middle of divine service 5 ; a man 

 at North Crawley was very roughly handled for addressing the con- 

 gregation on their way out of church * ; and Thomas Ellwood relates 

 how a certain Quaker at the end of a sermon, when the people 

 were asked to pray, quietly stood up in his place and said : 'The 

 prayer of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord, and the Lord 

 heareth not sinners.' 7 In 1656 another was sued for refusal of tithes 

 and imprisoned about three years at Aylesbury, and others in 1659 

 were prosecuted for attending a meeting in Wavendon. 8 



Many of the Quakers were of the lower classes, but they had a 



Diet. Nat. Biog. There is a good account of Roger Crab's career and writings in the Treasury for 

 1903, vol. i. The ' hermit of Dinton,' John Bigg, appears to have been quite mad, and his vagaries do 

 not seem to have had any connection with his religion. 



3 Ellwood, Autobiography, 38. 



' T. P. Bull, History of Newport Pagnel, 133. 



Ibid. 134-5 > Ellwood, Autobiography, 37, 41. 



T. P. Bull, History of Newport Pagnel, 134. Ibid. 

 ' Ellwood, Autobiography, 35. 



T. P. Bull, History of Newport Pagnel, 135. 



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