Episcopacy, steeple houses, and the liturgy; and propounded the most extravagant whimsies concerning postures, dress, and diversions. One of his coadjutors was John Hinks, first a shepherd’s boy, and then a shoemaker, prodigiously ignorant, and yet an enthusiast, who pretended to be inspired. James Naylor was another of Fox’s mad associates, a man who, when he entered Bristol, stripped himself stark naked, had his horse led in triumph by two women, while his nasal-twanged followers strewed branches in his way, and shouted “Hosannah.” Solomon Eccles, one of the Quakers’ chief teachers, went naked into the church at Aldermanbury, in the time of divine service, bedaubed all over with filth, as an emblem of the nakedness and filth of the minister who was preaching. And two women, at Kendal, of the names of Adlington and Collinson, are said to have walked through the streets of that town in the same state of nudity, and who, when friendly hands tried to cover them, rebuked such kindness, by declaring that “it hindered the work of the Lord.” Such, substantially, was the state of affairs, when, in 1643, the Assembly of Divines met, by an ordinance of parliament, in the city of Westminster, for “settling the government and liturgy of the Church of England, and for vindicating and clearing the said Church from false aspersions and interpretations.” The Assembly consisted of thirty members of parliament, including six noblemen; and of one hundred and twenty-one ministers, including Dr Lightfoot, Edmund Calamy, and Joseph Caryl. Baxter says, the divines were men of eminent learning and godliness, ministerial abilities and fidelity. Each member of the Assembly had four shillings a—day allowed by parliament towards his expenses. They sat five years, six months, and twenty-two days, during which time they had 1163 sessions. A few of the members were attached to Episcopacy; but, finding themselves in a hopeless minority, they soon retired. The great majority were in favour of Presbyterianism; but these, to the last, were vigorously opposed by a minority, consisting of two sections, who, although they generally acted in concert against the common enemy, were also distinguishable from each other. These were, first, the Independents; and, secondly, the Erastians, so called because of their adoption of the principles of Erastus, a German divine of the preceding century, who maintained that the Church, or the clergy, as such, possessed no inherent legislative power of any kind, and that the National Church was, in all respects, the mere subject and creature of the civil magistrate.