ive a Quaker a blow on one
cheek, he held up the other: ask his cloak, he gave you his coat also;
the greatest interest could not engage him, in any court of judicature,
to swear even to the truth: he never asked more for his wares than
the precise sum which he was determined to accept. This last maxim is
laudable, and continues still to be religiously observed by the sect.

No fanatics ever carried further the hatred to ceremonies forms, orders,
rites, and positive institutions. Even baptism and the Lord's supper,
by all other sects believed to be interwoven with the very vitals of
Christianity, were disdainfully rejected by them. The very Sabbath they
profaned. The holiness of churches they derided; and they would give
to these sacred edifices no other appellation than that of shops or
steeplehouses. No priests were admitted in their sect: every one had
received from immediate illumination a character much superior to the
sacerdotal. When they met for divine worship, each rose up in his place,
and delivered the extemporary inspirations of the Holy Ghost: women
also were admitted to teach the brethren, and were considered as proper
vehicles to convey the dictates of the spirit. Sometimes a great
many preachers were moved to speak at once sometimes a total silence
prevailed in their congregations.

Some Quakers attempted to fast forty days, in imitation of Christ; and
one of them bravely perished in the experiment.[*] A female Quaker
came naked into the church where the protector sat; being moved by the
spirit, as she said, to appeal as a sign to the people. A number of
them fancied, that the renovation of all things had commenced, and that
clothes were to be rejected, together with other superfluities. The
sufferings which followed the practice of this doctrine, were a species
of persecution not well calculated for promoting it.

James Naylor was a Quaker, noted for blasphemy, or rather madness,
in the time of the protectorship. He fancied, that he himself was
transformed into Christ, and was become the real savior of the world;
and in consequence of this frenzy, he endeavored to imitate many actions
of the Messiah related in the evangelists. As he bore a resemblance to
the common pictures of Christ, he allowed his beard to grow in a like
form: he raised a person from the dead:[**] he was ministered unto by
women:[***] he entered Bristol mounted on a horse, (I suppose, from the
difficulty in that place of finding an