Sculpture at Colchester Quaker Meeting Hall depicting Parnell in jail
Courageous faith isn’t just for special, brave people. Some of God’s heroes had to overcome serious limitations, even to get started. One such was James Parnell (1636-1655), from Retford in Nottinghamshire. He was a delicate lad, short for his age and sensitive. He loved Jesus and felt there must be more than going to the parish church.
In 1653, when he was 16, he heard of George Fox, the leader of the Quakers, who was in prison in Carlisle. Weak as he was, James walked the 150 miles and, fainting with exhaustion, was allowed to visit Fox. We have no record of their conversation, but Parnell was filled with the Holy Spirit and commissioned by Fox to be an evangelist.
He had just two years of life left, but they were amazingly fruitful. A colleague at the time, Stephen Crisp, subsequently wrote of him: ‘He was of a poor appearance, a mere youth, coming against giants; yet the wisdom of man was made to bow before the Spirit by which he spoke. He was a vessel of honour indeed and was mighty in the power and Spirit of Emanuel, breaking down and laying desolate many strongholds and towers of defence, in which the old deceiver had fortified himself with his children. Much might be spoken of this man, and a large testimony lives in my heart, to his blessed life, and to the power and wisdom that abounded in him.’
Disinherited and turned out of home by his parents, Parnell set about the work of the gospel. Sometimes with a partner, sometimes alone, he went from house to house, ‘preaching, praying, exhorting, and turning the minds of all sorts of people to the light of Jesus.’ He was ridiculed for his short stature, and often after preaching he was exhausted. Faith kept him going.
The cell in Colchester Castle where Parnell was held
Hearing that two Quakers had been whipped at Cambridge, he went there and preached himself. Far from keeping a low profile, he published two tracts, against the corruption of the magistrates and of the priests. He was imprisoned until a court hearing, where the jury was unable to prove his authorship of the tracts. So Parnell was given a magistrates’ pass branding him “a rogue” and escorted out of the town by soldiers and a mob armed with staves.
He continued to preach in the area of Ely, Cambridgeshire. In a letter he records: “There is a pleasing people [congregation] arising out of Littleport. I remained there a sufficient time among them. There are about sixty people who meet together in that town alone.” He was often set upon by angry crowds. On one occasion, he records, “the power of God was wonderfully seen in delivering me, so that I can’t remember if they hit me.”
He continued in the east of England, strengthening existing Quaker assemblies and planting new ones at . Finally, Parnell was arrested after preaching (heckling) in St Nicholas’ Church in Colchester and accused of blasphemy. At his trial, he was acquitted of the most serious charge but fined £40, a hefty sum equivalent to c. 570 working days’ wage for a skilled labourer at that time. Parnell refused to pay.
So he was imprisoned, in a cell at Colchester Castle that can still be visited today. He was able to write letters, some of which have survived. “I am committed to be kept a prisoner, but I am the Lord’s free-man,” he wrote in one. In another, he counselled a recent convert to the Quaker message: ‘Lie down in the will of God, and wait on His teaching so that He may be your head. By such you will find the way to peace and dwell in unity with all the faithful; and though you are hated by the world, yet in God is peace and well-being.’
His jailers starved him for days at a time, then let him climb down a rope to get food. The jailer’s wife and daughter used to beat him, and on occasions he was locked outside in mid-winter. It was too much for his weak constitution. One day he had no strength left to climb the rope but fell to the concrete below, and died of his injuries. He was buried in an unmarked grave, the first of several hundred Quaker martyrs. He was just 18 years old. His message to all of us is summed up in the last words he sent to the Quaker believers in Essex: “Be willing that self shall suffer for the truth, and not the truth for self.”