Divers times when a fast was proclaimed, G. Fox wrote on that subject;
and since commonly some mischief was then contrived against the
Quakers, no wonder that he would say, that these fasts were like unto
Jezebel’s.
Many of his friends being at this time in prisons and dungeons, several
others of them went to the parliament, and offered to lie in the same
prisons where their brethren lay; that so those that were in prison,
might not perish in stinking dungeons, and their persecutors thereby
bring innocent blood upon their own heads. But this could not be
obtained; for some of the parliament would threaten these compassionate
men that thus attended them, with whipping, if they did not desist.
And because the parliament then sitting, consisted mostly of such
who, pretending to be more religious than others, were indeed great
persecutors of those that were truly religious, G. Fox could not let
this hypocrisy go unreproved, but wrote the following lines to them:
‘O friends, do not cloak and cover yourselves; there is a God
that knoweth your hearts, and that will uncover you. He seeth
your way: “Wo be to him that covereth, but not with my Spirit,”
saith the Lord. Do ye contrary to the law, and then put it from
you? Mercy and true judgment ye neglect. Look, what was spoken
against such: my Saviour spake against such: “I was sick, and
ye visited me not; I was hungry, and ye fed me not; I was a
stranger, and ye took me not in; I was in prison, and ye visited
me not.” But they said, “When saw we thee in prison, and did
not come to thee?” “Inasmuch as ye did it not unto one of these
little ones, ye did it not unto me.” Friends, ye prison them
that be in the life and power of Truth, and yet profess to be
the ministers of Christ: but if Christ had sent you, ye would
bring out of prison, and out of bondage, and receive strangers.
Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have
nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter: ye have condemned
and killed the just, and he doth not resist you.