But little favour could we find from those professing Parliaments; instead thereof, they would rage, and sometimes threaten Friends that attended them, to whip and send them home. Then commonly soon after the Lord would turn them out, and send them home; who had not an heart to do good in the day of their power. But they went not off without being forewarned; for I was moved to write to them, in their several turns, as I did to the Long Parliament, unto whom I declared, before they were broken up, "that thick darkness was coming over them all, even a day of darkness that should be felt." And because the Parliament that now sat was made up mostly of high professors, who, pretending to be more religious than others, were indeed greater persecutors of those that were truly religious, I was moved to send them the following lines, as a reproof of their hypocrisy:[111] [111] This was Cromwell's _Second Parliament_. "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 unto him that covereth, but not with my Spirit, saith the Lord.' Do ye act contrary to the law, and then put it from you! Mercy and true judgment ye neglect. Look, what was spoken against such. My Saviour spoke 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 imprison them that are 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, 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. G. F." After this, as I was going out of town, having two Friends with me, when we were little more than a mile out of the city, there met us two troopers belonging to Colonel Hacker's regiment, who took me, and the Friends that were with me, and brought us back to the Mews, and there kept us prisoners. But the Lord's power was so over them that they did not take us before any officer; but shortly after set us at liberty again. The same day, taking boat, I went to Kingston, and thence to Hampton Court, to speak with the Protector about the sufferings of Friends. I met him riding in Hampton Court Park, and before I came to him, as he rode at the head of his life-guard, I saw and felt a waft [or apparition] of death go forth against him; and when I came to him he looked like a dead man.