Weapons which Faith is Victory or gives Victory by which ye lay hold on Eternal Life and have access unto God who will render to every man according to his Deeds to them who by patient continuing in well-doing seek for glory and honour and immortality Eternal Life but unto them that are contentious and do not obey the Truth but obey unrighteousness indignation and wrath Tribulation and Anguish upon every soul of man that doth evil but glory honour and peace to every man that worketh good Christ said to his Disciples If the world hate you ye know that it hated me before it hated you If ye were of the world the world would love it's own but because ye are not of the world but I have chosen you out of the world therefore the world hateth you And If they have persecuted me they will also persecute you And John in his general Epistle to the Church saith Marvel not my Brethren if the world hate you We know that we have passed from death to life because we love the Brethren And Christ in his Prayer to his Father saith of his Followers As thou hast sent me into the world even so have I also sent them iâ— the world And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them that they may be one even as we are one And therefore all ye that know God and Jesus Christ whom to know is Eternal Life and are Partakers of his Glory keep the Testimony of Jesus and be valiant for his Truth upon Earth that ye may be all settled upon Christ the Rock and Foundation Dolston the 3d of the 8th Month 1682. G. F. I made but little stay at Dolston but returned again to London London where I continued most part of the Winter labouring in the Service of Truth amongst Friends Save that I was a little while at Kingston in the Tenth Month this Year where I writ a Book Kingston setting forth The state of the Birth Temporal and the Birth Spiritual And the Duty and State of a Child Youth Young Men Aged Men and Fathers in the Truth c. But I staid not long at Kingston neither for the heat of Persecution still continuing I felt my Service to be most at London London where our Meetings were for the most part disturbed and broken up or Friends were forced to Meet without Doors being kept out of their Meeting-Houses by the Officers Yet sometimes beyond expectation we got a quiet and peaceable Meeting in the Houses One time I was minded to have gone a mile or two out of Town to visit a Friend that was not well But hearing that the King had sent to the Mayor to put the Laws in Execution against Dissenters and that the Magistrates thereupon intended to Nail up the Meeting-house-doors I had not freedom to go out of Town but was moved to go to the Meeting at Gracious-street And notwithstanding all the Threats a great Meeting it was and very quiet and the Glory of the Lord shone over all The same Week I went to the Meeting at the Peel in John's Street and the Sessions were holden the same day at Hicks's hall Peel-Meet I went to the Peel in the Morning and William Mead being to appear at the Sessions for not going to the Steeple-house-worship he came once or twice from Hicks's hall to me at the Peel which some Ill-minded-people observing went and Informed the Justices at the Bench that he was gone to a Meeting at the Peel Whereupon the Justices sent a Messenger to see if there were a Meeting but this being in the Forenoon there was no Meeting there then and so the Messenger when he had looked about went back and told them Then others Informed the Justices that there would be a Meeting there about three or four in the Afternoon Whereupon they sent for the Chief Constable and asked him Why he suffered a Meeting to be at the Peel so nigh him He told them He did not know of any Meeting there They asked him How he could but know it and live so nigh it He said He was never there in his life 1682. London and did not know that there was a Meeting there They would have perswaded him that he must needs know of it but he standing stedfast in the denial of it they said They should take order to have it look'd after in the Afternoon But a multitude of Business coming before them at the Sessions when Dinner-time came they hasted to their Dinner without giving order And when they came to the Bench again after Dinner the Lord put it out of their Minds so that they sent no Officer and so the Meeting was quiet beginning and ending in peace and a blessed Meeting we had the Lord's Presence being preciously amongst us Many Friends had a concern upon their minds when they saw me come into the Meeting lest I should have been taken But I was freely given up to suffer if it was the Lord's Will before I went into the Meeting and had nothing in my mind concerning it but the Lord's Glory And I do believe the Lord put it out of their minds that they should not send to break up our Meeting that day Yet the First-day after three or four Justices as I heard came to the Peel and put Friends out of their Meeting there and kept them out and inquired for William Mead but he was not there Grac. Meet That day I was moved to go to Gracious-street-Meeting and it was expected that the Officers would come to break up the Meeting or keep Friends out and many hundreds of People came to see what would be done to us But the Officers came not and so we were in peace and quietness and many of the People that came to look on staid all the time and a glorious precious Meeting we had for the Lord's Presence was plentifully amongst us and his Power came over all Glory to his Name for ever who is over all I had seen the Mayor's printed Speech for putting the Laws in Execution against Dissenters and it was much in my mind that we should draw up a Paper to send to the Mayor and Aldermen to clear our selves from being such as those Laws were made against and to set forth our peaceable Behaviour both towards the King and the Government Accordingly a Paper was drawn up and signed and delivered to the Mayor and Copies thereof to the Aldermen and to the Bishop of London also And they generally took it kindly and were Civil to the Friends that delivered it About this time I was moved to write the few Lines following to Friends Dear Friends FEel the Power of God in you all and over all and by it let all your hearts be united to one another and to the Lord God who hath gathered you to himself by his Power and Spirit to be a People to serve and worship him So that you may all strive to Excel
it to try you for he upholds all things in Heaven and Earth by the Word of his Power All things were made by Christ and by him all things do consist mark consist whether they be Visibles or Invisibles c. So he hath power over all for all Power in Heaven and Earth is given to him and to you that have received him he hath given Power to become the Sons and Daughters of God so living Members of Christ the living Head and grafted into him in whom ye have Eternal Life And Christ the Seed reigns and his Power is over all who bruises the Serpent's Head and destroys the Devil and his Works and was before he was And so all of you live and walk in Christ Jesus so that nothing may be between you and God but Christ in whom ye have Salvation Life Rest and Peace with God As for the passages of Truth in this Land and abroad I do hear that in Holland and Germany and there-aways Friends are in Love Vnity and Peace And in Jamaica Barbados Mevis Antego Maryland and New-England I hear nothing but Friends are in Vnity and Peace The Lord preserve them all out of the World in which there is Trouble in Christ Jesus in whom there is Peace Life Love and Vnity Amen So my Love in the Lord Jesus Christ to all Friends every where in your Land as though I named them London the 10th of the 11th Month 1690. G. F. THus Reader hast thou had some Account of the Life and Travels Labours Sufferings and Manifold Trials and Exercises of this holy Man of God from his Youth to almost the time of his Death Of which himself kept a Journal out of which the foregoing Sheets were transcribed It remains that an Account be added of the Time Place and Manner of his Death and Burial Which were thus The next day after he had written the foregoing Epistle to Friends in Ireland be went to the Meeting at Gracious-street which was large it being on the First-day of the Week And the Lord enabled him to preach the Truth fully and effectually opening many deep and weighty things with great Power and Clearness After which having Prayed and the Meeting being ended he went to Henry Gouldney 's a Friend's House in Whitehart-Court near the Meeting house and some Friends going with him thither he told them He thought he felt the Cold strike to his heart as he came out of the Meeting yet added I am glad I was here Now I am clear I am fully clear As soon as those Friends that were with him were withdrawn he lay down upon a Bed as he sometimes used to do through Weariness after a Meeting but soon rose again and in a little time lay down again complaining still of Cold. And his Strength sensibly decaying he was fain soon after to go into Bed where he lay in much Contentment and Peace and very sensible to the Last And as in the whole Course of his Life his Spirit in the universal Love of God was set and bent for the exalting of Truth and Righteousness and the making known the Way thereof to the Nations and Peoples afar off so now in the time of his outward Weakness his Mind was intent upon and as it were wholly taken up with that And some particular Friends he sent for to whom he exprest his Mind and Desire for the Spreading Friends Books and Truth thereby in the World and through the Nations thereof Divers Friends came to visit him in his Ilness unto some of whom he said All is well The Seed of God reigns over all and over Death it self And though said he I am weak in Body yet the Power of God is over all and the Seed reigns over all disorderly Spirits Thus lying in an heavenly frame of Mind his Spirit wholly exercised towards the Lord he grew weaker and weaker in his natural Strength and on the Third day of that Week between the hours of Nine and Ten in the Evening he quietly departed this Life in Peace and sweetly fell asleep in the Lord whose blessed Truth he had livingly and powerfully preached in the Meeting but two days before Thus ended he his Days in his faithful Testimony in perfect Love and Vnity with his Brethren and in Peace and Good-will to all Men on the 13th day of the 11th Month 1690. being then in the 67th year of his Age. Vpon the 16th day of the same Month being the sixth of the Week and the Day appointed for his Funeral a very great Concourse of Friends and other People of divers sorts Assembled together at the Meeting-house in White-Hart-Court near Gracious-street about the middle time of the day in order to attend his Body to the Grave The Meeting was held about two hours with great and heavenly Solemnity manifestly attended with the Lord's blessed Presence and glorious Power in which divers living Testimonies were given from a lively Remembrance and Sense of the blessed Ministry of this Dear and Ancient Servant of the Lord his early Entring into the Lord's Work at the breaking forth of this Gospel-day his innocent Life long and great Travels and unwearied Labours of Love in the Everlasting Gospel for the turning and gathering many Thousands from Darkness to the Light of Christ Jesus the Foundation of true Faith his manifold Sufferings Afflictions and Oppositions which he met withal for his faithful Testimony both from his open Adversaries and from false Brethren and his Preservations Deliverances and Dominion in out of and over them all by the Power of God To whom the Glory and Honour always was by him and is and always ought to be by all Ascribed After the Meeting was ended his Body was born by Friends and accompanied by very great Numbers of Friends and other People to Friends Burying-Ground near Bunhill-Fields where after a solemn Waiting upon the Lord and several living Testimonies borne recommending the Company to the Guidance and Protection of that Divine Spirit and Power by which this holy Man of God had been raised up furnished supported and preserved to the end of his Day his Body was decently committed to the Earth but his Memorial shall Remain and be Everlastingly Blessed among the Righteous An Epistle of Dear George Fox's which was writ with his own Hand and left Sealed up with this Superscription viz. Not to be opened before the Time which after his Decease being opened was thought meet to be printed being as followeth Viz. For the Yearly and Second-Days-Meeting in London and to all the Children of God in all Places in the World By and from G. F. This for all the Children of God every where that are led by his Spirit and do walk in his Light in which they have Life and Unity and Fellowship with the Father and the Son and one with another KEep all your Meetings in the Name of the Lord Jesus that be gathered in his Name by his Light Grace Truth Power and Spirit
the Year 1653. George's drawings was into Cumberland by Milholm Lampley Embleton and Brigham Pardsey and Cockermouth where at or near Embleton he had a Dispute with some Priests as Larkham and Benson but chiefly with John Wilkinson a Preacher at Embleton and Brigham who after was Convinced and owned the Truth and was a serviceable Minister both in England Ireland and Scotland And then he went to Coldbeck and several places till he came to Carlisle and went to their Steeple-house And they beat and abused him and had him before the Magistrates who Examined him The third Imprisonment and put him in Prison there in the Common-Goal among the Thieves And at the Assizes one Anthony Pearson who had been a Justice of Peace and was Convinced at Appleby when he was upon the Bench by James Naylor and Francis Howgil who were then Prisoners there and brought before him so Anthony Pearson spake to the Justices at Carlisle he being acquainted with them having married his Wife out of Cumberland and after a while they Released him And after he went into several parts in Cumberland and many were Convinced and owned the Truth and he gathered and settled Meetings there amongst them and up and down in several Parts there in the North. And in the Year 1654. he went Southward to his own Country of Leicestershire visiting Friends And then Colonel Hacker sent him to Oliver Cromwel The fourth Imprisonment and after his being kept Prisoner a while he was brought before Oliver and was Released And then he stayed a while visiting Friends in London and the Meetings therein and so passed Westward to Bristol and visited Friends there and after went into Cornwal where they put him in Prison at Launceston The fifth Imprisonment and one Edward Pyot with him where he had a bad long Imprisonment And when he was Released he passed into many parts in that County of Cornwal and settled Meetings there And then he Travelled thorow many Counties visiting Friends and settling Meetings all along and so came into the North and to Swarthmore and to Cumberland And so for Scotland he passed in the Year 1657. and there went with him Robert Widders James Lancaster John Grave and others And he Travelled thorow many places in that Nation as Douglas Heads Hambleton Glascow and to Edenborough where they took him and carried him before General Monk and the Council and Examined him and asked him his Business into that Nation who Answered He came to visit the Seed of God And after they had threatned him and charged him to depart their Nation of Scotland they let him go And then he went to Linlithgow and Sterling and Johnstons and many places visiting the People and several were Convinced And after he had stayed a pretty while and settled some Meetings he returned into Northumberland and into the Bishoprick of Durham visiting Friends and settling Meetings as he went and then returned back again to Swarthmore and stayed amongst Friends a while and so returned South again And in 1658. Judge Fell died And in 1660. he came out of the South into the North and had a Great General Meeting about Balby in Yorkshire and so came on visiting Friends in many places till he came to Swarthmore again And King Charles then being come in the Justices sent out Warrants The sixth Imprisonment and took him at Swarthmore charging him in their Warrants That he drew away the King 's Liege People to the endangering the embruing the Nation in Blood and sent him Prisoner to Lancaster-Castle And I having a Great Family and he being taken in my House I was moved of the Lord to go to the King at Whitehall and took with me a Declaration and an Information of our Principles And a long time and much ado I had to get to him But at last when I got to him I told him If he was Guilty of those things I was Guilty for he was taken in my House And I gave him the Paper of our Principles and desired that he would set him at Liberty as he had promised That none should suffer for tender Consciences and we were of tender Consciences and desired nothing but the Liberty of our Consciences And then with much ado after he had been kept Prisoner near half a Year at Lancaster we got a Habeas Corpus and Removed him to the King's Bench where he was Released And then would I gladly have come home to my great Family but was bound in my Spirit and could not have Freedom to get away for a whole Year And the King had promised me several times that we should have our Liberty And then the Monarchy-Men rose and then came the Great and General Imprisonment of Friends the Nation thorow And so could I not have Freedom nor Liberty to come home till we had got a General Proclamation for all our Friends Liberty and then I had Freedom and Peace to come home And in 1663. he came North again and to Swarthmore And then they sent out Warrants and took him again and had him to Holcrof before the Justices and tendered him the Oath of Allegiance and sent him Prisoner to Lancaster-Castle The seventh Imprisonment And about a Month after the Justices sent for me also out of my House and tendered me the Oath and sent me Prisoner to Lancaster And the next Assizes they tendered the Oath of Allegiance and Supremacy to us again both and Premunired me But they had missed the Date and other things in his Indictment and so it was quasht but they tendered him the Oath again and kept him Prisoner a Year and an half at Lancaster-Castle And then they sent him to Scarborough-Castle in Yorkshire where they kept him Prisoner close under the Soldiers much of a Year and an half so that a Friend could scarcely have spoken to him yet after that it pleased the Lord that he was Released But I continued in Prison and a Prisoner four years at that time And an Order was procured from the Council whereby I was set at Liberty And in that time I went down into Cornwall with my Son and Daughter Lower and came back by London to the Yearly Meeting and there I met with him again And then he told me The time was drawing on towards our Marriage but he might first go into Ireland The eithth Imprisonment And a little before this time was he Prisoner in his own Country at Leicester for a while and then Released And so into Ireland he went and I went into Kent and Suffex and came back to London again And afterward I went to the West towards Bristol in 1669. and there I stay'd till he came over from Ireland And then it was Eleven years after my former Husband's Decease And in Ireland he had had a great Service for the Lord and his Eternal Truth amongst Friends and many People there but escaped many Dangers and Times of being taken Prisoner they having
laid in Wait afore-hand for him in many places And then he being return'd at Bristol he declared his Intentions of Marriage and there also was our Marriage solemnized And then within ten Days after I came homewards and my Husband stayed up and down in the Countries amongst Friends visiting them And soon after I came home there came another Order from the Council to cast me into Prison again and the Sheriff of Lancashire sent his Bailiff and pulled me out of my own House and had me Prisoner to Lancaster-Castle upon the Old Premunire where I continued a whole Year And most part of all that time was I sick and weakly and also my Husband was weak and sickly at that time And then after a while he Recovered and went about to get me out of Prison and a Discharge at last was got under the Great Seal and so I was set at Liberty And then I was to go up to London again for my Husband was intending for America And he was full two years away before he came back again into England and then he arrived at Bristol and then came to London and he intended to have come to the middle of the Nation with me But when we came into some parts of Worcestershire they got there Information of him and one Justice Parker by his Warrant sent him and my Son Lower to Worcester-Gaol The ninth Imprisonment and the Justices there tendered him the Oath and Premunired him but Released my Son Lower who stayed with him most of the time he was Prisoner there And after some time he fell sick in a long lingering Sickness and many times was very ill so they writ to me from London That if I would see him alive I might go to him which accordingly I did And after I had tarried Seventeen Weeks with him at Worcester and no Discharge like to be obtained for him I went up to London and writ to the King an Account of his long Imprisonment and how he was taken in his Travel homewards and how he was weak and sick and not like to live if they kept him long there And I went with it to Whitehall my self and I met with the King and gave him the Paper And he said I must go to the Chancellour he could do nothing in it Then I writ also to the Lord Chancellour and went to his House and gave him my Paper and spoke to him That the King had left it wholly to him and if he did not take pity and Release him out of that Prison I feared he would end his days there And the Lord Chancellour Finch was a very tender Man and spoke to the Judge who gave out an Habeas Corpus presently And when we got it we sent it down to Worcester and they would not part with him at first but said he was Premunired and was not to go out on that manner And then we were forced to go to Judge North and to the Attorney General and we got another Order and sent down from them and with much ado and great Labour and Industry of William Mead and other Friends we got him up to London where he Appeared in Westminster-Hall at the King 's Bench before Judge Hales who was a very honest tender Man and he knew they had Imprisoned him but in Envy So that which they had against him was Read and our Counsel pleaded That he was taken up in his Travel and Journey And there was but a little said till he was quitted And this was the Last Prison that he was in being freed by the Court of King's Bench. And when he was at Liberty he Recovered again And then I was very desirous to go home with him which we did And this was the first time that he came to Swarthmore after we were Married and so he stayed here much of two years And then went to London again to the Yearly Meeting and after a while went into Holland and some parts of Germany where he stayed a pretty while and then Returned to London again at the next Yearly Meeting And after he had stayed a while in and about London he came into the North to Swarthmore again and stayed that time nigh two years And then he grew weakly being troubled with Pains and Aches having had many sore and long Travels Beatings and hard Imprisonments But after some time he rid to York and so passed on thorow Nottinghamshire and several Counties visiting Friends till he came to London to the Yearly-Meeting and stayed there and there-aways till he finished his Course and laid down his Head in Peace And though the Lord had provided an outward Habitation for him yet he was not willing to stay at it because it was so remote and far from London where his Service most lay And my Concern for God and his holy Eternal Truth was then in the North where God had placed and set me and likewise for the Ordering and Governing of my Children and Family so that we were very willing both of us to live a-part some years upon God's Account and his Truth 's Service and to deny our selves of that Comfort which we might have had in being together for the sake and Service of the Lord and his Truth And if any took Occasion or Judged hard of us because of that the Lord will Judge them for we were Innocent And for my own part I was willing to make many long Journies for taking away all Occasion of evil Thoughts And though I lived Two hundred Miles from London yet have I been Nine times there upon the Lord and his Truth 's Account and of all the times that I was at London this last time was most Comfortable that the Lord was pleased to give me Strength and Ability to travel that great Journey being Seventy six years of Age to see my Dear Husband who was better in his Health and Strength than many times I had seen him before I look upon that that the Lord 's special Hand was in it that I should go then for he lived but about half a Year after I left him Which makes me admire the Wisdom and Goodness of God in Ordering my Journey at that time And now he hath finished his Course and his Testimony and is entered into his Eternal Rest and Felicity I trust in the same powerful God that his holy Arm and Power will carry me thorow whatever he hath yet for me to do and that he will be my Strength and Support and the Bearer up of my Head unto the End and in the End For I know his Faithfulness and Goodness and I have Experience of his Love To whom be Glory and Powerful Dominion for ever Amen M. F. The Testimony of some of the AUTHOR'S Relations NEither Days nor Length of Time with us can wear out the Memory of our Dear and Honoured Father George Fox whom the Lord hath taken to himself And though his Earthly House of this Tabernacle be dissolved
Day of this instant 11th Month 1690 After which he said I am glad I was here now I am clear I am fully clear Then he was the same Day taken with some Illness or Indisposition of Body more than usual and continued weak in Body for two days after at our Friend Henry Goldney's House in the same Court close by the Meeting-House in much Contentment and Peace and very sensible to the last In which time he mentioned divers Friends and sent for some in particular to whom he exprest his Mind for the spreading Friends Books and Truth in the World and through the Nations thereof as his Spirit in the Lord's Love and Power was universally set and bent for Truth and Righteousness and the making known the Way thereof to the Nations and People afar off signifying also to some Friends That all is well and the Seed of God reigns over all and over Death it self That though he was weak in Body yet that the Power of God is over all and the Seed reigns over all disorderly Spirits which were his wonted sensible Expressions being in the living Faith and Sense thereof which he kept to the End And the Thirteenth Instant between the Ninth and Tenth Hour in the Night he quietly departed this Life in Peace being two days after the Lord enabled him to Publish and Preach the Blessed Truth in the Meeting as aforesaid So that he clearly and evidently ended his days in his faithful Testimony in perfect Love and Unity with his Brethren and Peace and Good-will to all Men being about Sixty and six Years of Age as we understand when he departed this Life And on the Sixteenth of this Instant being the day appointed for his Funeral a very great Concourse of Friends and People assembled at our Meeting-House in White-Hart-Court aforesaid about the Mid-day in order to attend his Body to our Burying-place near Bunhill-Fields to be Interred as Friends last Office of Love and Respect due on that Account The Meeting was held about two Hours with great and heavenly Solemnity manifestly attended with the Lord's Blessed Power and Presence and divers living Testimonies given from a lively Remembrance and Sense of this his Dear Ancient Servant his Blessed Ministry and Testimony of the breaking forth of this Gospel-day his Innocent Life long and great Travels and Labours of Love in the Everlasting Gospel for the turning and gathering many Thousands from Darkness to the Light of Christ Jesus the Foundation of true Faith also of his manifold Sufferings Afflictions and Oppositions which he met withal for his faithful Testimony both from his open Adversaries and false Brethren and his Preservations Dominion and Deliverances out of them all by the Power of God To whom the Glory and Honour was and is ascribed in raising up and preserving this his faithful Witness and Minister to the End of his Days whose blessed Memorial will Everlastingly remain He loved Truth and Righteousness and bore faithful Testimony against Deceit and Falshood and the Mystery of Iniquity and often of late time especially warned Friends against Covetousness Earthly-mindedness against getting into the Earth and into a brittle Spirit and the younger sort against Loosness and Pride of Life c. A few days before he died he had a great Concern upon his Mind concerning some in whom the Lord's Power was working to lead them into a Ministry and Testimony to his Truth who through their too much entangling themselves in the things of this World did make themselves unready to answer the Call and Leadings of the Power of God and hurt the Gift that was bestowed upon them and did not take that regard to their Service and Ministry as they ought And mentioned the Apostle's Exhortation to Timothy To take heed to his Ministry and to shew himself approved c. And exprest his Grief concerning such as preferred their own Business before the Lord's Business and sought the advancing worldly Concerns before the Concerns of Truth And concluded with a tender and fatherly Exhortation to all to whom God had imparted of his Heavenly Treasure that they would improve it faithfully and be diligent in the Lord's Work that the Earth might be sown with the Seed of the Kingdom and God's Harvest might be minded by those whom he had called and enabled to labour therein and that such would commit the Care of their outward Concerns to the Lord who would care for them and give a Blessing to them However this is not mentioned to encourage any to run unsent or without being called of God Many are living Witnesses that the Lord raised him up by his Power to proclaim his mighry Day to the Nations and made him an Effectual Instrument in our Day to turn many from Darkness to Light and from Satan's Power to God and freely to suffer and bear all Reproaches and the manifold Persecutions Buffetings Halings Stonings Imprisonments and Cruelties that were in the Beginning and for some time inflicted on him and others for the Name of Christ Jesus He was in his Testimony as a fixed Star in the Firmament of God's Power where all that be truly wise and that turn many to Righteousness shall shine as the brightness of the Firmament and as the Stars for ever and ever He knew and Preached the Mystery of Christ Revealed the Life and Substance and the Power of Godliness above all Shadows and Forms The Lord endued him with a hidden Wisdom and Life He loved Peace and earnestly laboured for universal Love Unity Peace and good Order in the Churches of Christ And wherever he met with the contrary it was his great Grief and Burthen He was greatly for the Encouragement of faithful Labourers in the Lord's Work and it was a great Offence and Grief to him to have their Testimony weakned or Labours slighted through Prejudice in any professing Truth And inasmuch as the Lord suffered him not to be delivered up to the Will of his Enemies and Persecutors who often heretofore breathed out Cruelty against him and designed his Destruction but in his good Pleasure so fairly and quietly took him away in his own time when his Testimony was so blessedly finished and his Work accomplished This is all remarkable and worthy of serious and due Observation as being by a special and Divine Providence and Wisdom of God to whom we ascribe the Glory of all and not unto Man or Creatures Though we must needs allow and own that good Report and due Esteem which faithful Elders Ministers and Servants of God and Christ have by Faith obtained to the Praise of that blessed Power that upheld them in every Age in their day many whereof are even of late taken away from the Evil to come and are at Rest in the Lord out of the Reach of all Envy and Persecution where the Wicked cannot trouble them any more And we must patiently bear our Parting with them and our Loss and Sorrow on that Account with respect to their unspeakable
I was made to speak and open things to them There was one Brown who had great Prophecies and Sights upon his Death-bed of me And he spake openly of what I should be made Instrumental by the Lord to bring forth And of others he spake that they should come to nothing Which was fulfilled on some that then were something in shew And when this Man was buried a great Work of the Lord fell upon me to the admiration of many who thought I had been Dead And many came to see me for about fourteen Days time for I was very much altered in Countenance and Person as if my Body had been New-moulded or changed And while I was in that Condition I had a sense and discerning given me by the Lord 1647. Nottinghamshire through which I saw plainly that when many People talked of God and of Christ c. the Serpent spake in them But this was hard to be born Yet the Work of the Lord went on in some and my Sorrows and Troubles began to wear off and Tears of Joy dropped from me so that I could have wept Night and Day with Tears of Joy to the Lord in Humility and Brokenness of Heart And I saw into that which was without End and things which cannot be uttered and of the Greatness and Infinitness of the Love of God which cannot be exprest by Words For I had been brought through the very Ocean of Darkness and Death and through the Power and over the Power of Satan by the Eternal Glorious Power of Christ even through that Darkness was I brought which covered-over all the Word and which chained down all and shut up all in the Death And the same Eternal Power of God which brought me through these Things was that which afterwards shook the Nations Priests Professors and People Then could I say I had been in Spiritual Babylon Sodom Egypt and the Grave but by the Eternal Power of God I was come out of it and was brought over it and the Power of it into the Power of Christ And I saw the Harvest WHITE and the Seed of God lying thick in the Ground as ever did Wheat that was sown outwardly and none to gather it And for this I mourned with Tears And a Report went abroad of me That I was a Young Man that had a discerning Spirit Whereupon many came to me from far and near Professors Priests and People and the Lord's Power brake forth And I had great Openings and Prophecies and spake unto them of the Things of God and they heard with Attention and Silence and went away and spread the Fame thereof Then came the Tempter and set upon me again charging me That I had sinned against the Holy Ghost But I could not tell in what And then Paul's Condition came before me how after he had been taken up into the Third Heavens and seen things not lawful to be uttered a Messenger of Satan was sent to buffet him again Thus by the Power of Christ I got over that Temptation also In the Year 1648 as I was sitting in a Friend's House in Nottinghamshire for by this time the Power of God had opened the Hearts of some to receive the Word of Life and Reconciliation I saw there was a great Crack to go throughout the Earth and a great Smoke to go as the Crack went and that after the Crack there should be a great Shaking This was the Earth in People's Hearts which was to be shaken before the Seed of God was raised out of the Earth And it was so for the Lord's Power began to shake them and great Meetings we began to have and a mighty Power and Work of God there was amongst People to the Astonishment of both People and Priests And there was a Meeting of Priests and Professors at a Justice's House and I went among them And there they discoursed how Paul said He had not known Sin but by the Law which said Thou shalt not lust And they held that to be spoken of the outward Law But I told them Paul spake that after he was Convinced For he had the outward Law before and was bred up in it when he was in the Lust of Persecution but this was the Law of God in his Mind which he served and which the Law in his Members warred against For that which he thought had been Life to him proved Death So the more sober of the Priests and Professors yielded and consented that it was not the Outward Law but the Inward which shewed the Inward Lust which Paul spake of after he was Convinced For the outward Law took hold upon the outward Action but the Inward Law upon the Inward Lust After this I went again to Mansfield Mansfield where was a great Meeting of Professors and People And I was moved to Pray And the Lord's Power was so great that the House seemed to be shaken And when I had done some of the Professors said It was now as in the Days of the Apostles when the House was shaken where they were After I had prayed one of the Professors would pray which brought Deadness and a Vail over them And others of the Professors were grieved at him and told him It was a Temptation upon him Then he came to me and desired that I would pray again But I could not pray in Man's Will Soon after there was another great Meeting of Professors and a Captain whose Name was Amor Stoddard came in And they were discoursing of the Blood of Christ And as they were discoursing of it I saw through the immediate Opening of the Invisible Spirit the Blood of Christ And I cryed out among them and said Do ye not see the Blood of Christ See it in your Hearts to sprinkle your Hearts and Consciences from Dead Works to serve the Living God For I saw it the Blood of the New Covenant how it came into the Heart This startled the Professors who would have the Blood only without them and not in them But Captain Stoddard was reached and said Let the Youth speak hear the Youth speak when he saw they endeavoured to bear me down with many Words There were also a Company of Priests that were looked upon to be tender one of their Names was Kellet and several People that were tender went to hear them And I was moved to go after them and bid them Mind the Lord's Teaching in their inward Parts That Priest Kellet was against Parsonages then but afterwards he got a great One and turned a Persecutor Now after I had had some Service in these Parts Derbyshire Leicestershire I went through Derbyshire into my own Country Leicestershire again and several tender People were Convinced And passing thence I met with a great Company of Professors in Warwickshire who were Praying Warwickshire and Expounding the Scriptures in the Fields and they gave the Bible to me and I opened it on the Fifth of Matthew where Christ expounded
more a Quaker than the Priest that printed it but was one of their own People But notwithstanding this wicked Slander by which the Adversary designed to defame us and turn Peoples Minds against the Truth we held forth many in Lincolnshire received the Gospel being Convinced of the Lord 's Everlasting Truth and sate down therein under the Lord 's heavenly Teaching Yorkshire Warnsworth After this I passed in the Lord's Power into Yorkshire and came to Warnsworth and went to the Steeple-house in the Fore-noon but they shut the Door against me Yet after a while they let in Thomas Aldam and then shut it again and the Priest fell upon him asking him Questions At last they opened the Door and I went in and as soon as I was come in the Priests sight he left Preaching though I said nothing to him for he was in a great Maze and asked me What have you to say and presently Cried out Come come I will prove them false Prophets in Matthew But he was so Confounded he could not find the Chapter Then he fell on me asking me many Questions and I stood still all this while not saying any thing amongst them At last I said Seeing here are so many Questions asked I may Answer them But as soon as I began to speak the People violently rushed upon me and thrust me out of the Steeple-house again and lockt the Door on me And as soon as they had done their Service and were come forth the People ran upon me and knockt me sorely with their Staves threw Clods and Stones at me and abused me much the Priest also being in a great rage laid violent Hands on me himself But I warned them and him of the Terrible Day of the Lord and exhorted them to Repent and turn to Christ And being filled with the Lord's refreshing Power I was not sensible of much hurt I had received by their Blows In the Afternoon I went to another Steeple-house but the Priest had done before I got thither So I preached Repentance to the People that were left and directed them to their inward Teacher Jesus Christ. Balby Doncaster From hence I went to Balby and so to Doncaster where I had formerly preach'd Repentance on the Market-day which had made a Noise and Alarm in the Country On the First-day I went to the Steeple-house and after the Priest had done I spake to him and the People what the Lord God had Commanded me And they were in a great Rage and hurried me out and threw me down and haled me before the Magistrates and a long Examination they made of me and much Work I had with them And they threatned my Life if ever I came there again and that they would leave me to the Mercy of the People Nevertheless I declared Truth amongst them and directed them to the Light of Christ in them testifying unto them That God was come to teach his People himself 1652. Doncaster whether they would hear or whether they would forbear After a while they put us out for some Friends were with me among the rude Multitude and they stoned us down the Streets And there was an Inn-keeper that was a Bayliff came and took us into his House and they brake his Head that the Blood ran down his Face with the Stones that they threw at us So we stay'd a while in his House and shewed the more sober People the Priest's Fruits Then we went away to Balby Balby about a Mile off and the rude People laid wait for us and stoned us down the Lane But blessed be the Lord we did not receive much hurt The next first-Day I went to Tickhill Tickhill whither the Friends of that Side gathered together and there was a Meeting and a mighty Brokenness by the Power of God there was amongst the People I went out of the Meeting being moved of God to go to the Steeple-house And when I came there I found the Priest and most of the Chief of the Parish together in the Chancel So I went up to them and began to speak but they immediately fell upon me and the Clark up with his Bible as I was speaking and struck me on the Face with it so that my Face gushed out with Blood and I bled exceedingly in the Steeple-house Then the People cried Let us have him out of the Church And when they had got me out they beat me exceedingly and threw me down and threw me over an Hedge And afterwards dragged me through an House into the Street stoning and beating me as they dragged me along so that I was all-over besmeared with Blood and Dirt. And they got my Hat from me which I never got again Yet when I was got upon my Legs again I declared to them the Word of Life and shewed them the Fruits of their Teacher and how they dishonoured Christianity So after a while I got into the Meeting again amongst Friends And the Priest and People coming by the House I went forth with Friends into the Yard and there I spake to the Priest and People and the Priest scofed at us and called us Quakers But the Lord's Power was so over them and the Word of Life was declared in such Authority and Dread to them that the Priest fell a Trembling himself and one of the People said Look how the Priest trembles and shakes he is turned a Quaker also So when the Meeting was over Friends departed and I went without my Hat to Balby about Seven or Eight Miles Balby And Friends were much abused that Day by the Priest and his People Insomuch that some moderate Justices hearing of it Two or Three of them came and sate at the Town to hear and examine the Business And he that had shed my Blood was afraid of having his Hand cut off for striking me in the Church as they called it but I forgave him and would not appear against him In the beginning of this Year Yorkshire West-Riding 1652 great Rage got up in Priests and People and in some of the Magistrates in the West-Riding of Yorkshire against the Truth and against Friends insomuch that the Priest of Warnsworth procured a Warrant from the Justices against me and Thomas Aldam which was to be executed in any part of the West-Riding of Yorkshire ☜ At the same Time I had a Vision of a Bear and Two great Mastiff-Dogs that I should pass by them and they should do me no hurt and it proved so 1652. West-Riding For the Constable took Thomas Aldam and carried him to York and I went with Thomas Aldam Twenty Miles towards York and the Constable had the Warrant for me also and said He saw me but he was loth to trouble Men that were Strangers but Thomas Aldam was his Neighbour So the Lord's Power restrained him that he had not Power to meddle with me And we came to Lieutenant Roper's where we had a great Meeting of many
alone There did he stand till it was almost Night jangling and opposing me and would not go to his Dinner for he thought to have wearied me out But at last the Lord's Power and Truth came so over him that he packt away with his People Then when he was gone I went to the Meeting of Friends who were turned to the Lord and established by his Power upon Christ the Rock and Foundation of the true Prophets and Apostles but not of the False About this time the Priests and Professors fell to prophesying against us afresh They had said long before That we should be destroyed within a Month and after that they prolonged that time to Half a Year But that time being long expired and we mightily increased in number they now gave forth That we would eat out one another For many times after Meetings many tender People 1653. NORTH Country having a great way to go tarried at Friend's Houses by the way and sometimes more than there were Beds to lodge in so that some have lain on the Hay-mows Hereupon Cain's Fear possessed the Professors and World's People For they were afraid that when we had eaten one another out we would all come to be maintained by the Parishes and so we should be Chargeable to them But after a while when they saw that the Lord blessed and increased Friends as he did Abraham both in the Field and in the Basket at their Goings forth and Comings in at their Risings up and Lyings down and that all things prospered with them then they saw the falseness of all their Prophecies against us and that it was In vain to Curse where God had blessed At the first Convincement when Friends could not put off their Hats to People nor say You to a single Person but Thou and Thee nor could not Bow nor use flattering Words in Salutations nor go into the Fashions and Customs of the World many Friends that were Tradesmen of several sorts lost their Customers at the first for the People were shy of them and would not Trade with them so that for a time some Friends that were Tradesmen could hardly get Money enough to buy Bread But afterwards when People came to have Experience of Friends Honesty and Faithfulness and found that their Yea was Yea and their Nay was Nay that they kept to a Word in their Dealings and that they would not Cozen and Cheat them but that if they sent any Child to their Shops for any thing they were as well used as if they had come themselves the Lives and Conversations of Friends did preach and reached to the Witness of God in People And then things altered so that all the Inquiry was Where was a Draper or Shop-keeper or Taylor or Shoomaker or any other Tradesman that was a Quaker Then that was all the Cry Insomuch that Friends had more Trade than many of their Neighbours and if there was any Trading they had a great part of it And then the Envious Professors altered their Note and began to Cry out If we let these Quakers alone they will take the Trade of the Nation out of our Hands This hath been the Lord's doings to and for his People which my desire is that All who profess his Holy Truth may be kept truly sensible of and that all may be preserved in and by his Power and Spirit faithful to God and Man First to God in Obeying him in all things and then in Doing unto All Men that which is just and righteous true and holy and honest to all Men and Women in all things that they have to do or deal with them in that the Lord God may be glorified in their practising Truth Holiness Godliness and Righteousness amongst People in all their Lives and Conversations Now Friends being grown very Numerous in the Northern parts of this Nation and divers Young-Convinced ones coming daily in among us I was moved of the Lord to write the following Epistle and send it forth amongst them for the stirring up the pure Mind and raising an Holy Care and Watchfulness in them over themselves and one another for the honour of Truth To you all Friends every where scattered abroad IN the measure of the Life of God wait for Wisdom from God even from him from whence it comes And all ye who be Babes of God Wait for the Living Food from the Living God to be nourished up to Eternal Life from the one Fountain from whence Life comes that orderly and in Order ye may all be guided and walk Servants in your Places Young-Men and Young-Women in your Places and Rulers of Families that every one in your respective Places may adorn the Truth every one in the Measure of it With it let your Minds be kept up to the Lord Jesus from whence it doth come that a sweet Savour ye may be to God and in Wisdom ye may all be ordered and ruled that a Crown and a Glory ye may be one to another in the Lord. And that no Strife nor Bitterness nor Self-Will may appear amongst you but with the Light in which the Vnity is all that may be Condemned And that every one in particular may see to and take care of the ordering and ruling of their own Family that in Righteousness and Wisdom it may be governed the fear and dread of the Lord in every ones Heart set that the Secrets of the Lord every one may come to receive that Stewards of his Grace you may come to be to dispense it to every one as they have need and so in savouring and right-discerning you may all be kept That nothing that is contrary to the pure Life of God may be brought forth in you or among you but all that is contrary to it may by it be judged So that in Light in Life and Love ye may all live and all that is contrary to the Light and Life and Love may be brought to Judgment and by that Light condemned And that no fruitless Trees be among you but all cut down and condemned by the Light and cast into the Fire so that every one may bear and bring forth Fruit to God and grow fruitful in his Knowledge and in his Wisdom And so that none may appear in Words beyond what they be in the Life that gave forth the Words Here none shall be as the untimely Figs and none shall be of those Trees whose Fruit withers Such go in Cain's way from the Light and by it are condemned And that none amongst you boast your selves above your Measure for if you do out of God's Kingdom you are excluded for in that boasting part gets up the Pride and the Strife which is contrary to the Light which Light leads to the Kingdom of God and gives every one of you an Entrance thereinto and an Understanding to know the things that belong to the Kingdom of God And there the Light and Life of Man every one receives him who was before
the World was by whom it was made who is the Righteousness of God and his Wisdom to whom all Glory Honour Thanks and Praise belongs who is God blessed for ever Let no Image nor Likeness be made but in the Light Wait which will bring Condemnation on that part that would make the Images for that prisons the Just. So to the Lust yield not the Eye nor the Flesh for the Pride of Life stands in that which keeps out of the Love of the Father and upon which his Judgments and Wrath remains where the Love of the World is sought after and a Crown that is mortal in which Ground the Evil enters which is cursed which brings forth Bryars and Thorns where the Death reigns and Tribulation and Anguish is upon every Soul and the Egyptian Tongue is heard All which is by the Light Condemned And there the Earth is which must be removed by the Light it is seen and by the Power it is removed and out of its place it is shaken to which the Thunders utter their Voices before the Mysteries of God be opened and Jesus revealed Therefore all ye whose Minds are turned to this Light which brings Condemnation upon all those things before-mentioned that are contrary to the Light Wait upon the Lord Jesus for the Crown that is Immortal and that fadeth not away G. F. This is to be sent amongst all Friends in the Truth the Flock of God to be read at their Meetings in every Place where they are met together While yet Friends abode in the Northern Parts a certain Priest of Rexam in Wales whose Name was Morgan Floyd having heard Reports concerning us sent Two of his Congregation into the North to Inquire concerning us and to Try us and bring him an Account concerning us But when these Triers came down amongst us the Power of the Lord seized on them and they were both Convinced of the Truth So they stayed some Time with us and then returned back to Wales where afterwards one of them departed from his Convincement but the other whose Name was John-ap-John abode in the Truth and received a part of the Ministry in which he continued faithful Now were the Priests in a great Rage at New Castle and at Kendal and up and down in most of the Northern Counties And there being one Gilpin that had sometimes come amongst us at Kendal and soon run out from the Truth into vain Imaginations the Priests made what Evil Vse they could of him against us but the Lord's Power confounded them all And the Lord God cut off Two of those persecuting Justices at Carlisle and the other after a Time was turned out of his Place and went out of the Town About this Time also the Oath or Engagement to O. Cromwel was tendered to the Souldiers and many of the Souldiers were disbanded because in Obedience to Christ they could not swear As John Stubbs for one who was Convinced when I was in Carlisle-Prison and became a good Soldier in the Lamb's War and a faithful Minister of Christ Jesus travelling much in the Service of the Lord in Holland Ireland Scotland Italy Egypt and America and the Lord's Power preserved him out of the Hands of the Papists though many times he was in great Danger of the Inquisition But some of the Souldiers who had been Convinced in their Judgments but had not come into Obedience to the Truth took O Cromwel's Oath and going afterwards into Scotland and coming before a Garrison there the Garrison thinking 1654. NORTH-Country they had been Enemies fired at them and killed divers of them which was a sad Judgment Now when the Churches were settled in the North and Friends were sate down under Christ's Teaching and the Glory of the Lord shined over them Swarthmore Lancaster I passed from Swarthmore to Lancaster about the beginning of the Year 1654 and so through the Countries visiting Friends till I came to Synder-hill-green where there was a Meeting appointed three Weeks before leaving the North fresh and green under Christ their Teacher But before I came to Synder-hill-green we passed through Hallifax Hallifax a rude Town of Professors and came to one Thomas Taylor 's who had been a Captain where we met with some Janglers but the Lord's Power was over all for I travelled in the Motion of God's Power Synder-hill-Green And when I came to Synder-hill-green there was a mighty Meeting some Thousands of People as it was judged and many Persons of Note were there as Captains and other Officers and there was a general Convincement for the Lord's Power and Truth was set over all and there was no Opposition About this Time did the Lord move upon the Spirits of many whom he had raised up and sent forth to Labour in his Vineyard to travel Southwards and spread themselves in the Service of the Gospel to the Eastern Southern and Western parts of the Nation As Francis Howgill and Edward Burrough to London John Camm and John Audland to Bristol through the Countries Richard Hubberthorn and George Whitehead towards Norwich Thomas Holmes into Wales and others otherways for above sixty Ministers had the Lord raised up and did now send abroad out of the North-Country And the sense of their Service being very Weighty upon me I was moved to give forth the following Paper directed thus To Friends in the Ministry ALL Friends every where Know the Seed of God which bruiseth the Seed of the Serpent and is a top of the Seed of the Serpent which Seed sins not but bruiseth the Serpent's Head that doth sin and tempts to Sin Which Seed God's Promise and God's Blessing is to which Seed is One in the Male and in the Female Where it is Head and hath bruised the Head of the other to the beginning you are come and the Younger is known and he that is Servant to the Younger And the Promise of God which is to the Seed is fulfilled and fulfilling and the Scriptures come to be opened and owned And the Flesh of Christ known who took upon him the Seed of Abraham according to the Flesh the Everlasting Priesthood known the Everlasting Covenant Christ takes upon him the Seed of Abraham and is a Priest after the Order of Melchizedeck him that is without Father without Mother without Beginning of Days mark or End of Life This is the Priest that ever lives he that is the Covenant of Life of Light and Peace And the Everlasting Offering here is known once for all which Offering overthrows that Nature which offered out of which the Priesthood arose that could not continue by reason of Death And here is the other Offering known the Everlasting Offering which perfects for ever them that are sanctified which Offering blotted out the Hand-writing of Ordinances triumphs over them and ascends above all Principalities and Powers Now he that hath the Spirit of Jesus sees this and here is the Love of God received that doth not
have not considered the handy-works of the Lord but have destroyed them nor have regarded the way of the Lord but have had plenty of the Creatures and have therewith fatted up your selves and forgot the Lord and his way O let Shame cover your Faces here upon Earth Come ye that are given to Pleasures and spend your Time and Days in Sports and Idleness and Fulness your Fruits declare the Sins of Sodom yet you will make a Talk of my Name and of my Saints Words But I behold you afar off saith the Lord you are Proud and Lofty you are bad Patterns and bad Examples that be full and rich and Idle who say Others are Idle that cannot maintain your Lusts Oh! the unrighteous Ballances that are among People Oh the Iniquity in Measuring Oh the Oppression in Ruling and Governing Therefore because of these things my Hand shall come upon you saith the Lord. For the Oppression is entred into the Ears of the Lord who gives Rest to the wearied to the burdened to the oppressed who feeds the Hungry and cloaths the Naked who brings the Mighty from their Seats and beats the Lofty to Ground and makes the Haughty to bend Come saith the Lord ye Mockers and Scorners and Rebellious ones light and wild People vain and heady you have had your Day of Joy you have Scoffed you have Mocked and derided my Messengers and my Ambassadors who have preached in your Streets and cried in your Synagogues and Temples a Day of Trembling and Lamentation shall on you come when you are not aware I 'le take away your Pride and your Height I 'le shake you as a Leaf and bring you to be as Men distracted I 'le distract you and make you that you shall not trust one another in the Earth who have joined hand in hand against my Servants in the Truth I 'le smite you with Terrors and bring Frets and Fears upon you the Cup of my Indignation and Fury shall you drink Where will you appear when Repentance is hid from your Eyes when prophane Esau your Father it set before you and Ishmael and Cain wild and envious whose Fruits declare the Stock Come ye proud Priests who have eaten up the Fat of the Nation who by Violence have taken other Men's Goods whose Envy hath slain many whose Wickedness and Darkness hath abounded and whose Vnrighteousness daily appears Your Fruits every day declare it in summoning up by Writs and Subpoena's from most parts of the Nation for Wages and Tithes such as you do no work for Oh the Abominable Vnrighteousness how is the State of Man lost that these things they do not take to Heart to feel them What havock is made in most parts of the Nation with such And all ye Priests and Teachers who are railing and brawling in the Pulpit setting People at variance one against another Haters and Hateful provoking People to Hate one another here is the Seed of Enmity seen which you have sown and are sowing whose Seed must be bruised by the Seed of the Woman which a top of your Heads is set G. F. This Year came out the Oath of Abjuration by which many Friends suffered and several Friends went to speak with the Protector about it but he began to harden And Sufferings increasing upon Friends by reason that envious Magistrates made use of that Oath as a Snare to catch Friends in who they knew could not swear at all I was moved to write to the Protector about it and other suffering Friends as followeth THE Magistrate is not to bear the Sword in vain which ought to be a Terror to the Evil-doers but the Magistrate that doth bear the Sword in vain as he is not a Terror to the Evil-doers so he is not a Praise to them that do well Now hath God raised up a People by his Power whom People Priests and Magistrates who are out of the Fear of God scornfully call Quakers who do cry against Drunkenness for Drunkards destroy God's Creatures and do cry against Oaths for because of Oaths the Land mourns and they Drunkards and Swearers to whom the Magistrate's Sword should be a Terror are we see at liberty but for crying against such many are cast into Prison and for crying against their Pride and Filthiness their deceitful Merchandize in Markets their Cozening and their Cheating their Excess and Naughtiness their playing at Bouls and Shovel-boards at Cards and at Dice and their other vain and wanton Pleasures for who live in Pleasures are dead while they live and who live in Wantonness kill the Just This we know by the Spirit of God which gave forth the Scriptures which God the Father hath given to us and hath placed his Righteous Law in our Hearts which Law is a Terror to Evil-doers and answers that which is of God in every Man's Conscience They which act contrary to the Measure of God's Spirit in every Man's Conscience cast the Law of God behind their Backs and walk despitefully against the Spirit of Grace The Magistrate's Sword we see is born in vain whilst the Evil-doers are at Liberty to do Evil and they that cry against such are for so doing punished by the Magistrate who hath turned his Sword backward against the Lord. And now the Wicked one fenceth himself and persecutes the Innocent as Vagabonds and Wanderers for crying against Sin and against Vnrighteousness and Vngodliness openly in the Markets and in the High-ways or as Railers because they tell them what Judgment will follow them that follow such Practices And here they that depart from Iniquity are become a Prey and few lay it to heart But God will thresh the Mountains and beat the Hills and cleave the Rocks and cast into his Press which is trodden without the City and will bathe his Sword in the Blood of the Wicked and Vnrighteous So they that have drunk the Cup of Abominations an hard Cup have you to drink you who are the Enemies of God and of you he will be avenged who be his Enemies Now ye in whom something of God is remaining consider If the Sword was not born in vain but turned against the Evil-doers then the Righteous would not suffer and be cast into Holes Dungeons Corners and Prisons and Houses of Correction as Peace-Breakers for crying against Sin openly as they are commanded of the Lord and for crying against the Covetousness of the Priests and their false Worships who exact Money now of poor People whom they do no work for Oh! where will you appear in the Day of the Lord or how will you stand in the Day of his righteous Judgment How many Jails and Houses of Correction are now made Places to put the Lambs of Christ in for following him and obeying his Commands which are too many to mention The Royal Law of Christ To do as ye would be done by is trodden down under foot So that Men can profess him in Words and Talk but Crucify him wheresoever he appears
and his Marshal to the Meeting and were Convinced for the glorious powerful Day of the Lord was exalted over all and many were Convinced that day at that Meeting There were at that Meeting Two 1655. Whetston that came out of Wales who were Justices of Peace their Names were Peter Price and Walter Jenkin who came both to be Ministers of Christ I went from thence to Sileby to William Smith's Sileby where was a great Meeting to which several Baptists came and one of them a Baptist-Teacher was Convinced and came to sit under the Lord 's Teaching by his Spirit and Power This Baptist said he had Baptized Thirty in a day From thence I went to Drayton my Native Town Drayton where so many Priests and Professors had formerly gathered together against me but now never a Priest nor Professor did appear I asked some of my Relations Where were all the Priests and Professors now They said The Priest of Non-Eaton was dead and there were Eight or Nine of them seeking to get into his Benefice They will let you alone now said they for they are like a Company of Crows when a rotten Sheep is dead they all gather together to pull out the Puddings and so do the Priests for a fallen Benefice These were some of their own Hearers that said so of them But they had spent their Venom against me and the Lord delivered me by his Power out of their Snares Then I went to Badgley Badgley where there was a great Meeting from many parts many came far to it and many were Convinced and turned to the Lord And they that were Convinced came under Christ's Teaching and were settled upon him their Foundation and their Rock From thence I passed into Nottinghamshire Nottingham-shire Darbyshire and had large Meetings there and so into Darbyshire where the Lord's Power came over all and many were turned from the Darkness to the Light and from the Power of Satan unto God and came to receive the Holy Ghost And great Miracles were wrought in many Places by the Power of the Lord through several In Darbyshire James Nailer met me and told me Seven or Eight Priests had challenged him to a Dispute I had a Travel in my Spirit for him and the Lord answered me and I was moved to bid him Go on and God Almighty would be with him and give him the Victory in his Power And the Lord did so insomuch that the People saw the Priests were foiled and they cried A Nailer a Nailer hath confuted them all After the Dispute was over he came to me again praising the Lord. Thus was the Lord's Day proclaimed and set over all their Heads and People began to see the Apostacy and Slavery they had been under to their Hireling-Teachers for Means and they came to know their Teacher the Lord Jesus who had bought them and purchased them and made their Peace betwixt God and them While we were here Friends came out of Yorkshire to see us and were glad of the Prosperity of Truth After this I passed into Warwickshire through Friends Warwickshire Worcestershire Birmingham visiting their Meetings and so into Worcestershire and had a Meeting at Brummingham as I went where several were Convinced and turned to the Lord. At length I came to one Cole's House in Worcestershire near Chattan 1655. Near Chattan This Cole had given an Independent-Preacher a Meeting-place and the Independent came to be Convinced and after he was Convinced he laid aside his Preaching Whereupon the Old Man Cole gave him an hundred Pounds a Year I had a Meeting at that Meeting-place and a very great Meeting it was insomuch that the Meeting-place would not hold the People and many were turned to the Lord that day Afterwards when the time of Trials came this Independent did not stand to that which had Convinced him but turned back Whereupon the Old Man took away his 100 l. a Year from him again But this Old Man Cole himself died in God's Truth Now I heard that at Evesholme the Magistrates had cast several Friends into Prison in several Prisons and that hearing of my coming they made a pair of high Stocks So I sent for Edward Pittaway a Friend that lived near Evesholme and asked him the Truth of the thing and he said It was so Then I went that Night with him to Evesholme Evesholme and in the Evening we had a large precious Meeting wherein Friends and People were refreshed with the Word of Life and with the Power of the Lord. Next Morning I got up and rid to one of the Prisons and visited Friends there and encouraged them Then I rid to the other Prison where there were several Prisoners and amongst them one Friend that had been a Priest but was now become a free Minister of Christ his Name was Humphrey Smith So when I had visited the Friends at both Prisons and was turned away from the Prison to go out of Town I espied the Magistrates coming up the Town to have seized me in Prison But the Lord frustrated their Intents that the Innocent escaped their Snare and the Lord God's blessed Power came over them all But exceeding Rude and Envious were the Priests and Professors about this time in those Parts Worcester I went from Evesholme to Worcester and had a precious Meeting there and quiet But after the Meeting as we came down the Street towards our Inn some of the Professors fell to discourse with Friends and were like to have made a Tumult in the City and as we went into the Inn they all cluttered into the Yard but I went among them and got them quieted The next day I walked forth into the Town and had a great deal of Discourse with some of the Professors concerning Christ and the way of Truth One of them denied That Christ was of Abraham according to the Flesh and that he was declared to be the Son of God according to the Spirit But I proved from Rom. 1. that he was of the Seed of Abraham being made of the Seed of David according to the Flesh and that according to the Spirit he was declared to be the Son of God Afterwards I writ a Paper concerning it Tewksbury From Worcester we went to Tewksbury where in the Evening we had a great Meeting And there came in the Priest of the Town with a great Rabble of rude People and the Priest boasted That he would see whether he or I should have the Victory I turned the People to the Divine Light which Christ the heavenly and spiritual Man had enlightned them withal that with that Light they might see their Sins and that they were in Death and Darkness and without God in the World 1655. Tewksbury And with the same Light they might see Christ from whom it came their Saviour and Redeemer who had shed his Blood for them and died for them and who was the Way to God
received at thy Hands thou hast given us to understand And here thou may'st think thou hast made thy self secure and sufficiently barr'd up our Way of Relief against whom tho' thou knew'st we had done nothing contrary to the Law or worthy of Bonds much less of the Bonds and Sufferings we had sustained thou hast proceeded as hath been rehearsed notwithstanding that thou art as are all the Judges of the Nation Intrusted not with a Legislative Power but to Administer Justice and to do Even Law and Execution of Right to all High and Low Rich and Poor without having regard to any Man's Person and art sworn so to do as hath been said And wherein thou dost Contrary art liâ—ble to Punishment as ceasing from being a Judge and becoming a Wrong-doer and an Oppressor which what it is to be many of thy Predecâ—ssors have understood some by Death others by Fine and Imprisonment And of this thou may'st not be Ignorant that to deny a Prisoner any of the Priviledges the Law allows him is to deny him Justice to Try him in an Arbitrary Way to rob him of that Liberty which the Law gives him which is his Inheritance as a Freeman And which to do is in effect To subvert the Fundamental Laws and Government of England and to Introduce an Arbitrary and Tyrannical Government against Law which is Treason by the Common Law and Treasons by the Common Law are not taken away by the Statutes of 25 Edw. III. 1 H. IV. 1 2. m. See O. St. Johns now Chief Justice of the Common Pleas his Argument against Strafford fol. 65. c. in the Case These things Friend We have laid before thee in all plainness to the End that with the Light of Jesus Christ who lighteth every one that cometh into the World a Measure of which thou hast which sheweth thee Evil and reproveth thee for Sin for which thou must be accountable thou being still and cool may'st consider and see what thou hast done against the Innocent and shame may overtake thee and thou may'st Turn unto the Lord who now calleth thee to Repentance by his Servants whom for witnessing his living Truth in them thou hast Cast into and yet continuest under Cruel Bonds and Sufferings From the Gaol in Lanceston the 14th day of the 5th Month 1656. Edw. Pyot By the foregoing Letter the Reader may Observe how contrary to Law we were made to suffer But the Lord who saw the Integrity of our Hearts to him and knew the Innocency of our Cause was with us in our Sufferings and bore up our Spirits through and made them Easie to us and gave us Opportunities of publishing his Name and Truth amongst the People so that several of the Town came to be Convinced and many were made Loving to us and Friends from many Parts came to visit us There came Two out of Wales who had been Justices of the Peace there Also Judge Hagget's Wife of Bristol came to visit us and she was Convinced and several of her Children and her Husband was very kind and serviceable to Friends and had a great Love to God's People which he retained to his Death Now in Cornwall Devonshire Dorsetshire and Somersetshire Truth began mightily to spread and many were turned to Christ Jesus and his free Teaching for many Friends that came to Visit us were drawn forth to declare the Truth in those Countries which made the Priests and Professors rage and they stirred up the Magistrates to ensnare Friends Then they set up Watches in the Streets and in the High-ways on pretence of taking up all suspicious Persons under which Colour they stopt and took up those Friends that travelled in and through those Countries coming to visit us in Prison which they did that the Friends might not pass up and down in the Lord's Service But that which they thought to have stopt the Truth by was the Means of spreading it so much the more for then Friends were frequently moved to speak to one Constable and t'other Officer and to the Justices they were brought before and this caused the Truth to spread the more amongst them in all their Parishes And when Friends were got among the Watches it would be a Fortnight or three Weeks before they could get out of them again for no sooner had one Constable taken them and carried them before the Justices and they had discharged them but another would take them up and carry them before other Justices Which put the Country to a great deal of needless Trouble and Charges As Thomas Rawlinson was coming up out of the North to visit us a Constable â—o Devonshire took him up and at Night took Twenty Shillings out of his Pocket And after they had thus robbed him he was cast into Exeter-Gaol They cast Henry Pollexfen also into Prison in Devonshire for being a Jesuit who had been a Justice of Peace for the most part of Forty Years before Many Friends were cruelly beaten many times by them Nay some Clothiers that were but going to Mill with their Cloth and other Men about their outward Occasions they took up and Whipt though Men of about Eighty or an hundred Pounds by the Year and not above four or five Miles from their Families The Mayor of Lanceston too was a very Wicked Man for he would take up all he could get and cast them into Prison And he would search substantial grave Women their Petticoats and their Head-cloaths There came a Friend a Young-Man to â—ee us who came not through the Town So I drew up all the Gross Inhuman and Vnchristian Actions of the Mayor for his Carriage was more like an Heathen than a Christian and I gave it the Young Man and bid him Seal it up and go out again the back-way and then come into the Town through the Gates He did so and the Watch took him up and carried him before the Mayor who presently searched his Pockets and found the Letter wherein he saw all his Actions Characterized Which shamed him so that from that time forward he meddled little with the Servants of the Lord. Now from the sense I had of the Snare that was laid and Mischief intended against the Servants of the Lord in setting up those Watches at that time to stop and take up Friends it came upon me to give forth the following Lines as An Exhortation and Warning to the Magistrates ALL ye Powers of the Earth Christ is come to Reign and is among you and ye know him not who doth Enlighten every one of you that are come into the World that ye all through him might believe who is the Light who treads the Wine-press alone without the City whose Feet are upon it Therefore see all and examin with the Light what ye are Ripe for for the Press is ready for you Before Honour is Humility And all you that would have Honour before ye have Humility mark before ye have Humility are ye not as the Heathen are
tread over them in that which lets you see to the VVorlds End and the utmost Parts of the Earth Reign and Rule with Christ whose Scepter and Throne is now set up whose Dominion is over all to the Ends of the Earth whose Dominion is an everlasting Dominion Throne an everlasting Throne Kingdom an everlasting Kingdom Power above all Powers Therefore this is the Word of the Lord God to you all Keep in the wisdom of God that spreads over all the Earth the wisdom of the Creation that is Pure from Above not destructive For now shall Salvation go out of Zion to Judge the Mount of Esau and now shall the Law go forth from Jerusalem to Answer the Principle of God in all to hew down all Inventors and Inventions For all the Princes of the Earth is but as Air to the Power of the Lord God which you are in and have tasted of Therefore Live in it that is the Word of the Lord God to you all and do not Abuse it And keep down and Low and take heed of false Joys that will Change Bring all into the Worship of God Plow up the fallow Ground thresh and get out the Corn that the Seed the Wheat may be gathered into the Barn that to the Beginning all People may come to Christ that was before the VVorld was made For the Chaff is come upon the VVheat by Transgression he that treadeth it out is out of Transgression and fathoms Transgression and puts a difference between the precious and the vile and can pick out the Wheat from the Tares and gather into the Garner so brings to the lively Hope the Immortal Soul into God out of which it came And none worships God but who comes to the Principle of God which they have transgressed and none are plowed up but who comes to the Principle of God in him that he hath transgressed then he doth service to God then is the planting and the watering and the Increase from God cometh So the Ministers of the Spirit must minister to the Spirit that is in Prison which hath been in Captivity in every one that with the Spirit of Christ People may be led out of Captivity up to God the Father of Spirits and do service to him and to have Vnity with him with the Scriptures and one with another And this is the Word of the Lord God to you all and a Charge to you all in the presence of the living God Be Patterns be Examples in all Countries Places Islands Nations where-ever you come that your Carriage and Life may preach among all sorts of People and to them then you will come to walk Chearfully over the World Answering that of God in every one whereby in them ye may be a Blessing and make the Witness of God in them to bless you Then to the Lord God you will be a sweet Savour and a Blessing Spare no Deceit lay the Sword upon it go over it Keep your selves clear of the Bloods of all Men either by Word or Writing or Speaking and keep your selves clean that you may stand in your Throne and every one have his Lot and stand in the Lot in the Ancient of Days And so the Blessing of the Lord be with you and keep you over all the Idolatrous Worships and Worshippers let them know the Living God for Teachings Churches Worships must be thrown down with the power of the Lord God set up by Man's earthy Vnderstanding Knowledge and Wills For this all must be thrown down with that which gave forth Scripture and who be in that Reigns over it all That is the Word of the Lord God to you all In that is God Worshipped that brings to declare his Will and brings to the Church in God the Ground and Pillar of Truth for now is the mighty Day of the Lord appeared and the Arrows of the Almighty gone forth which shall stick in the Hearts of the Wicked Now will I Arise saith the Lord God Almighty to trample and Thunder down Deceit which hath long reigned and stained the Earth Now will I have my Glory out of every one The Lord God Almighty over all in his Strength and Power you keep to his Glory that you may come to Answer that of God in every one in the World Proclaim the mighty Day of the Lord of Fire and Sword who will be worshipped in Spirit and in Truth and keep in the Life and Power of the Lord God that the Inhabitants of the Earth may tremble before you That the Lord God's Power and Majesty may be Admired among the Hypocrites and Heathens and ye in the Wisdom Dread Life Terror and Dominion Preserved to his Glory that nothing may Rule or Reign but Power and Life it self and in the Wisdom of God ye may be preserved in it And this is the Word of the Lord God to you all and the Call is now Out of Transgression the Spirit bids Come and the Call is now from all false Worships and Gods and from all Inventions and dead Works to serve the living God and the Call to Repentance to the Amendment of Life whereby Righteousness may be brought forth which shall go throughout the Earth Therefore ye that be Chosen and Faithful which are with the Lamb go through your Work faithfully and in the Strength and Power of the Lord and be obedient to the Power for that will save you out of the Hands of unreasonable Men and preserve you over the World to himself hereby you may live in the Kingdom that stands in Power which hath no end where glory and life is For Tho. Mounts G. F. After the Assize the Sheriff with some Souldiers came to guard a Woman to Execution that was sentenced to die and we had a great deal of Discourse with them One of them wickedly said That Christ was as passionate a Man as any that lived upon the Earth for which wicked Saying we rebuked him Another time we asked the Jailer what Doings there were at the Sessions and he said Small Matters only about Thirty for Bastardy We thought it very strange that they who professed themselves Christians should make small Matters of such things But this Jailer was very bad himself and I often admonished him to Sobriety but he would Abuse People that came to Visit us Edward Pyot had a Cheese sent him from Bristol from his Wife and the Jailer took the Cheese from him and carried it to the Mayor to search it for Treasonable Letters as he said And though they found no Treason in the Cheese they kept it from us This Gaoler might have been made Rich if he had carried himself Civilly but he sought his own Ruin Which soon after came upon him For the next Year he was turned out of his Place and for some wickedness was cast into the Jail himself and there begged of our Friends And for some Vnruliness in his Carriage he was by the succeeding Jailer put into Doomsdale and
make Havock of Ship and Goods with the World but rather that ye do run to save the Men and the Goods for them and so deny your selves and do unto them as ye would they should do unto you G. F. This Paper had a good Service among People 1660. And Friends have endeavoured much to save the Lives of the Men in times of Wracks and to preserve the Ships and Goods for them And when some that have suffered Shipwrack have been almost dead and starved some Friends have taken them to their Houses to succour them and recover them which is an Act to be practised by all true Christians Now turned I back again from the Lands-End and after I had had many precious and blessed living Meetings in Cornwall several Eminent People being Convinced in that County whom neither Priests nor Magistrates by spoiling Goods or Imprisonments could make to forsake their Shepherd the Lord Jesus Christ that had bought them and all Friends who were turned to Christ their Teacher and Saviour being setled in Peace and Quietness upon him their Fundation we left them unto the Lord Jesus Christ's Teaching and Ordering fresh and green and Thomas Lower who had accompanied me through all that County brought me over Horse-Bridge into Devonshire again Devonshire And after several Meetings up and down in Devonshire we came into Somersetshire where we had divers large and peaceable Meetings Somersetshire and so passing through the County visiting Friends till we came to Bristol 1660. Bristol I came into Bristol on the Seventh Day of the Week and the Day before the Souldiers came with their Muskets into the Meeting and were exceeding rude beating and striking Friends with their Muskets and drove them out of the Orchard in a great Rage threatning what they would do if Friends came there again For the Mayor and the Commander of the Souldiers had it seems combined together to make a Disturbance amongst Friends Now when I came to Bristol and Friends told me what a Rage there was in the Town how they were threatned by both the Mayor and Souldiers and how unruly the Souldiers had been to Friends the day before I sent for several Friends as George Bishop Thomas Gouldney Thomas Speed and Edward Pyot and desired them to go to the Mayor and Aldermen and desire them seeing he and they had broke up our Meetings to let Friends have the Town-Hall to Meet in and for the use of it Friends would give them Twenty Pounds a Year to be distributed amongst the Poor and when the Mayor and Aldermen had business to do in it Friends would not Meet in it but only on the First Days Those Friends were astonished at this and said The Mayor and Aldermen would think that they were Mad But I said Nay for they should offer them a considerable Benefit to the Poor And it was upon me from the Lord to bid them Go and at last they Consented and went though in the Cross to their own Wills When they had laid the thing before the Mayor it came so over him that he said For his part he could consent to it but he was but one And he told Friends of another Great Hall they might have but that they did not accept of it being inconvenient So Friends came away leaving the Mayor in a very loving Frame towards them For they felt the Lord's Power had come over him When they came back I spake to them to go also to the Colonel that Commanded the Souldiers and lay before him the rude Carriage of his Souldiers how they came Armed amongst naked innnocent People who were waiting upon and worshipping the Lord But they were backward to go to him Next Morning being the First Day of the Week we went to the Meeting in the Orchard where the Souldiers had so lately been so rude And after I had declared the Truth a pretty while in the Meeting there came in many rude Souldiers and People some with Drawn Swords The In-keepers had made some of them drunk and one of them had bound himself with an Oath to cut down and kill the Man that spoke So he came pressing in through all the Crowd of People to within two Yards of me and stopt at those Four Friends before-mentioned who should have gone to the Colonel as I would have had them and fell a jangling with them On a sudden I saw his Sword was put up and gone For the Lord's Power came over all and chained him and the rest and we had a blessed Meeting and the Lord 's Everlasting Power and Presence was felt amongst us On the Day following those Four Friends went and spake with the Colonel and he sent for the Souldiers and Cut and Slasht some of them before the Friends Faces Which when I heard of I blamed the Friends for letting him do so and also for that they did not go on the Seventh Day as I would have had them which might have prevented this Cutting of the Souldiers and the Trouble they gave at our Meeting But thus the Lord's Power came over all those persecuting bloody Minds and the Meeting there was settled in Peace for a good while after without Disturbance I had then also a General Meeting at Edw. Pyot's near Bristol at which it was judged there were divers Thousands of People For besides Friends from many parts thereabouts some of the Baptists and Independents with their Teachers came to it and very many of the sober People of Bristol insomuch that the People that staid behind said The City looked naked there were so many gone out of it to this Meeting It was a very quiet Meeting and many glorious Truths were opened to the People and the Lord Jesus Christ was set up who was the End of all Figures and Shadows and the Law and the first Covenant And it was declared to the People how that all Figures and Shadows were given to Man after Man fell and how that all the Rudiments and Inventions of Men which have been set up in Christendom many of which were Jewish and Heathenish Ceremonies were not set up by the Command of Christ and all Images and Likenesses Man has made to himself or for himself whether of things in Heaven or things in Earth have been since he lost the Image and Likeness of God which God made him in But now Christ was come to Redeem Translate Convert and Regenerate Man out of all these things that he hath set up in the Fall and out of the true Types Figures and Shadows also and out of Death and Darkness up into the Light and Life and Image and Likeness of God again which Man and Woman were in before they fell Therefore all now should come and all might come to receive Christ Jesus the Substance by his Light Spirit Grace and Faith and should live and walk in him the Redeemer and Saviour And whereas we had had a great deal of work with the Priests and
those parts in their Meetings and so passed on to Balby in Yorkshire where our Yearly Meeting at that time was holden in a great Orchard of John Killams where it was suppos'd some Thousands of People and Friends were gathered together In the Morning I heard that a Troop of Horse was sent from York about Thirty Miles off to break up our Meeting and that the Militia newly raised was to join with them So I went into the Meeting and stood up on a great Stool and after I had spoken sometime Two Trumpeters came up sounding their Trumpets pretty near me and the Captain of the Troop cried Divide to the Right and Left and make way Then they rid up to me 1660. Balby Yearly Meeting Now I was declaring the Everlasting Truth and Word of Life in the mighty Power of the Lord. The Captain bid me Come down for he was come he said to disperse our Meeting After some time I spake to him and told him He and they all knew we were a peaceable People and that we used to have such great Meetings But if he did question that we Met in an hostile Way I desired him to make search among us and if he found either Sword or Pistol about any there let such suffer He told me he must see us dispersed for he came all Night on purpose to disperse us I asked him What Honour it would be to him to Ride with Swords and Pistols amongst so many Vnarmed Men and Women as there was But if he would be still and quiet our Meeting probably might not continue above two or three Hours and when it was done as we came Peaceably and Civilly together so we should part For he might perceive the Meeting was so large that all the Country thereabouts could not entertain them but that they intended to depart towards their Homes at Night He said He could not stay to see the Meeting ended but must disperse them before he went I desired him then if he himself could not stay that he would let a dozen of his Souldiers stay and see the Order and Peaceableness of our Meeting He said He would permit us an Hour's time and left half a dozen Souldiers to stay with us Then went the Captain away with his Troop and Friends of the House gave those Souldiers that staid and their Horses some Meat When the Captain was gone the Souldiers that were left told us We might stay till Night if we would But we staid but about three Hours after and had a glorious powerful Meeting For the presence of the Living God was manifest amongst us and the Seed Christ was set over all and Friends were built upon him the Foundation and settled under his glorious heavenly Teaching And after the Meeting was done Friends passed away in Peace greatly refreshed with the Presence of the Lord and filled with Joy and Gladness that the Lord's Power had given them such Dominion For many of the Militia-Souldiers staid also and were much vexed that the Captain and Troopers had not broken up our Meeting and Cursed the Captain and his Troopers For it was reported that they intended to have done us some Mischief that day but the Troopers instead of Assisting them were rather Assistant unto us in not joining with them as they expected but preventing them from doing the Mischief they designed And yet this Captain was a desperate Man For it was he that had said to me in Scotland That he would obey his Superiors Commands and if it were to Crucifie Christ he would do it or execute the Great Turk's Commands against the Christians if he were under him So that it was an Eminent Power of the Lord which chained down both him and all his Troopers and those envious Militia-Souldiers also so that they went away not having power to hurt any of us nor to break up our Meeting Warmsworth The next day we had an heavenly Meeting at Warmsworth of Friends in the Ministry and several others and then Friends parted And as they passed through the Countries several were taken up For that day that our first Meeting was on Lambert was Routed and it made a great Blunder in the Country but Friends were not kept long in Prison at that time 1658. Nottinghamshire Skegby As I went to this Meeting at Balby there came several to me at Skegby in Nottinghamshire that were then going to be Souldiers under Lambert and would have bought my Horse of me and because I would not sell him to them they were in a great Rage against me using many Threatning Words But I told them God would confound and scatter them and within two or three Days after they were scattered indeed From Warmsworth I passed in the Lord's Power to Barton-Abby Barton-Abby T. Taylor 's Skipton General Meeting of Men-Friends where I had a great Meeting and from thence to Thomas Taylor s and so to Skipton where there was a General Meeting of Men-Friends out of many Counties concerning the Affairs of the Church There was a Friend went Naked through the Town declaring Truth and he was much beaten Some other Friends also came to me all bloody And as I walked in the Street there was a desperate Fellow had an Intent to have done me a Mischief But he was prevented and our Meeting was quiet To this Meeting came many Friends out of most parts of the Nation for it was about Business relating to the Church both in this Nation and beyond the Seas Several Years before when I was in the North I was moved to recommend to Friends the setting up of this Meeting for that Service For many Friends suffered in divers parts of the Nation and their Goods were taken from them contrary to the Law and they understood not how to help themselves or where to seek Redress But after this Meeting was set up several Friends that had been Justices and Magistrates and others that understood something of the Law came thither and were able to Inform Friends and to assist them in gathering up the Sufferings that they might be laid before the Justices Judges or Parliament Now this Meeting had stood several Years and divers Justices and Captains had come to brake it up but when they have understood the Business Friends Met about and have seen Friends Books and Accompts of Collections for Relief of the Poor how we took Care one County to help another and to help our Friends beyond the Seas and provide for our Poor that none of them should be chargeable to their Parishes c. The Justices and Officers would Confess that we did their Work and would pass away peaceably and lovingly Commending Friends Practices And sometimes there would come Two hundred of the World 's Poor People and wait there till the Meeting was done for all the Country knew we met about the Poor and then after the Meeting was over Friends would send to the Bakers for Bread and give every one of
those Fifth-Monarchy-Men But when those of them that were taken came to be executed they did us that Right to clear us openly from having any hand in or knowledge of their Plot. And after that the King being continually Importuned thereunto Issued forth a Declaration That Friends should be set at liberty without paying Fees But great Labour and Travel Care and Pains was taken in it before this was obtained for Thomas Moor and Margaret Fell went often to the King about it Much Blood was shed this Year many of them that had been the Old King's Judges being hanged drawn and quartered And amongst them that so suffered Col. Hacker was one he who sent me Prisoner from Leicester to London in Oliver's time of which an Account is given before A sad Day it was and a Repaying of Blood with Blood For in the time of O. Cromwel when several Men were put to Death by him being hanged drawn and quartered for pretended Treasons I felt from the Lord God that their Blood would not be put up but would be required And I said as much then to several And now upon the King's Return when several of them that had been against the King were put to Death as the others that were for the King had been before by Oliver This was sad Work destroying of People contrary to the Nature of Christians who have the Nature of Lambs and Sheep But there was a Secret Hand in bringing this Day upon that Hypocritical Generation of Professors who being got into Power grew Proud Haughty and Cruel beyond others and persecuted the People of God without pity Therefore when Friends were under cruel Persecutions and Sufferings in the Common-wealth's time I was moved of the Lord to write unto Friends to draw up their Sufferings and lay them before the Justices at their Sessions And if they would not do them Justice then to lay it before the Judges at the Assize And if they would not do them Justice then to lay it before the Parliament and before the Protector and his Council that they might all see what was done under their Government And if they would not do Justice then to lay it before the Lord who would hear the Cries of the Oppressed and of the Widows and Fatherless that they had made so For that which we suffered for and which our Goods were spoiled for it was for our Obedience to the Lord in his Power and in his Spirit who was able to help and to succour and we had no Helper in the Earth but him And he did hear the Cries of his People and did bring an overflowing Scourge over the Heads of all our Persecutors which brought a Quaking and a Dread and a Fear amongst and on them all So that they who had nick-named us who are the Children of Light and in scorn called us Quakers the Lord made them Quake and many of them would have been glad to have hid themselves amongst us and some of them through the Distress that came upon them did at length come to Confess to the Truth Oh! the daily Reproaches Revilings and Beatings we underwent amongst them even in the High-ways because we could not put off our Hats to them and for saying Thou and Thee to them Oh! the Havock and Spoil the Priests made of our Goods because we could not put into their Mouths and give them Tithes Besides casting into Prisons and besides the great Fines laid upon us because we could not Swear But for all these things did the Lord God plead with them Yet some of them were so hardened in their Wickedness that when they were turned out of their Places and Offices they said If they had Power they would do the same again And when this Day of overturning was come upon them they said It was all long of us Wherefore I was moved to write to them and to ask them Did we ever resist them when they took away our Ploughs and Plough-Gears our Carts and Horses our Corn and Cattel our Kettles and Platters from us and whipt us and set us in the Stocks and cast us into Prison and all this only for serving and worshipping God in Spirit and Truth and because we could not Conform to their Religions Manners Customs and Fashions Did we ever resist them Did we not give them our Backs to beat and our Cheeks to pull off the Hair and our Faces to spit on Had not their Priests that prompted them on to such Work plucked them with themselves into the Ditch Why then would they say It was all long of us when it was long of themselves and their Priests their blind Prophets that followed their own Spirits and could fore-see nothing of these times and things that were come upon them which we had long forewarned them of as Jeremiah and Christ had forewarned Jerusalem And they thought to have wearied us out and undone us but they undid themselves Whereas we could praise God notwithstanding all their plundering of us that we had a Kettle and a Platter and an Horse and Plow still Many ways were these Professors warned both by Word by Writing and by Signs but they would believe none till it was too late William Sympson was moved of the Lord to go at several times for Three Years Naked and Bare-foot before them as a Sign unto them in Markets Courts Towns Cities to Priest's Houses and to Great Men's Houses telling them So should they be all stripped Naked as he was stripped Naked And sometimes he was moved to put on Hair-Sack-cloth and to besmear his Face and to tell them So would the Lord God besmear all their Religion as he was besmeared Great Sufferings did that poor Man undergo sore Whippings with Horse-whips and Coach-whips on his bare Body grievous Stonings and Imprisonments in three years time before the King came in that they might have taken Warning but they would not but rewarded his Love with cruel Vsage Only the Major of Cambridge did nobly to him for he put his Gown about him and took him into his House Another Friend one Robert Huntington was moved of the Lord to go into Carlisle-Steeple-house with a White Sheet about him amongst the great Presbyterians and Independents there to shew them that the Surplice was coming up again and he put an Halter about his Neck to shew them That an Halter was coming upon them which was fulfilled upon some of our Persecutors not long after Another whose Name was Richard Sale living near West-Chester and being Constable of the place where he lived had a Friend sent to him with a Pass whom those wicked Professors had taken up for a Vagabond because he travelled up and down in the Work of the Ministry and this Constable being convinced by the Friend that was thus brought to him gave him his Pass and Liberty and was afterwards himself cast into Prison After this on a Lecture-day this Richard Sale was moved to go to the Steeple-house in the time
of their Worship and to carry those persecuting Priests and People a Lanthorn and Candle as a Figure of their Darkness But they cruelly abused him and like dark Professors as they were they put him into their Prison called Little-Ease and so squeezed his Body therein that not long after he Died. Many Warnings of many sorts were Friends moved in the Power of the Lord to give unto that Generation which they not only rejected but abused Friends calling us Giddy-headed Quakers But God brought his Judgments upon those Persecuting Priests and Magistrates For when the King came in most of them were turned out of their Places and Benefices and the Spoilers were Spoiled And then we could ask them Who were the Giddy-heads now Then many did confess we had been True Prophets to the Nation and said Had we cried against some Priests only they should have liked us then but we crying against All that made them dislike us But now they did see that those Priests which then were looked upon to be the best were as bad as the Rest For indeed some of those that were counted the most-Eminent Priests were the bitterest and greatest Stirrers up of the Magistrates to Persecution And it was a Judgment upon them to be denied the Free Liberty of their Consciences when the King came in because when they were uppermost they would not have had Liberty of Conscience been granted unto others For there was one Hewes of Plymouth a Priest of great Note in Oliver's Days who when some Liberty was granted pray'd That God would put it into the Hearts of the Chief Magistrates of the Nation to remove this cursed Toleration And others of them prayed against it by the name of Intolerable Toleration But a while after when the King was come in and Priest Hewes turned out of his great Benefice for not Conforming to the Common-Prayer a Friend of Plymouth meeting with him asked him Whether he would account Toleration Accursed now And Whether he would not now be glad of a Toleration To which the Priest returned no Answer save by the shaking of his Head But as stiff as this sort of Men were then against Toleration it is well known that many of them petitioned the King for Toleration and for Meeting-Places and paid for Licences too But to return to the present Time the latter end of the Year 1660. and beginning of 1661. Although those Friends that had been Imprisoned upon the Rising of those Monarchy-Men were set at Liberty yet Meetings were much disturbed and great Sufferings Friends went under For besides what was done by Officers and Souldiers many wild Fellows and rude People often came in There came one time when I was at Pell-Mell an Embassador with a Company of Irish Men with rude Fellows The Meeting was done before they came and I was gone up into a Chamber where I heard one of them say he would kill all the Quakers So I went down to him and was moved in the Power of the Lord to speak to him and I told him The Law said An Eye for an Eye and a Tooth for a Tooth but thou threatens to kill all the Quakers though they have done thee no hurt But said I here is Gospel for thee Here 's my Hair and here 's my Cheek and here 's my Shoulder turning it to him This came so over him that he and his Companions stood as Men amazed and said If that was our Principle and if we were as we said they never saw the like in their Lives I told them What I was in Words I was the same in Life Then the Embassador came in for he had stood without for he said that Irish Colonel was such a desperate Man that he durst not come in with him for fear he should have done us some Mischief but Truth came over him and he carried himself lovingly towards us and so did the Embassador also for the Lord's Power was over them all At Mile-End Friends were kept out of their Meeting-Place by Souldiers but Friends stood Nobly in the Truth and were Valiant for the Lord's Name and at last the Truth gave them Dominion About this time we had Account that John Love a Friend that was moved to go and bear Testimony against the Idolatry of the Papists was dead in Prison at Rome and it was suspected he was privately put to Death in Prison John Perrot was also Prisoner there and being released came over again But after his Arrival here he with Charles Baily and some others turned aside from the Vnity of Friends and Truth Whereupon I was moved to give forth a Paper declaring how the Lord would blast them all both him and his Followers if they did not Repent and Return and that they should wither like the Grass on the House-top and so many of them did but others of them returned and repented Also before this time we received Account from New-England That the Government there had made a Law to Banish the Quakers out of their Colonies upon pain of Death in case they returned and that several of our Friends having been so banished and returning were thereupon taken and actually Hanged and that divers more were in Prison in danger of the like Sentence to be executed upon them When those were put to Death I was in Prison at Lancaster and had a perfect Sense of their Sufferings as though it had been my self and as though the Halter had been put about my own Neck though we had not at that time heard of it But as soon as we heard of it Edward Burrough went to the King and told him There was a Vein of Innocent Blood opened in his Dominions which if it were not stopt would over-run all To which the King replied But I will stop that Vein Edward Burrough said Then do it speedily for we know not how many may soon be put to Death The King answered As speedily as ye will Call said he to some present the Secretary and I will do it presently So the Secretary being called a Mandamus was forthwith granted A Day or two after Ed. Burrough going again to the King to desire the matter might be expedited the King said He had no Occasion at present to send a Ship thither but if we would send one we might do it as soon as we would Ed. Burrough then asked the King If it would please him to grant his Deputation to one called a Quaker to carry the Mandamus to New-England which is hereafter inserted He said Yes to whom ye will Whereupon E. B. named one Samuel Shattock as I remember who being an Inhabitant of New-England was banished by their Law to be hanged if he came again and to him the Deputation was granted Then we sent for one Ralph Goldsmith an honest Friend who was Master of a good Ship and with him we agreed for Three Hundred Pounds Goods or no Goods to Sail in Ten Days He forthwith prepared to set Sail and with
People And said It was great pity that they did not return to the Holy Mother Church Thus they made a Busz among the People and said They would willingly discourse with Friends But Friends were loth to meddle with them because they were Jesuits looking upon it to be both dangerous and scandalous But when I understood it I said to Friends Let us discourse with them be they what they will So a time being appointed at Gerrard Roberts his House there came two of them like Courtiers When we were come together they asked our Names which we told them But we did not ask their Names for we understood they were called Papists and they knew we were called Quakers I asked them the same Question that I had formerly asked a Jesuit namely Whether the Church of Rome was not degenerated from the Church in the Primitive Times from the Spirit and Power and Practice that they were in in the Apostles times He to whom I put this Question being subtile said He would not Answer it I ask'd him Why But he would shew no Reason His Companion said he would answer me and he said They were not degenerated from the Church in the Primitive times I asked the other Whether he was of the same Mind And he said Yes Then I told them that for the better understanding one another and that there might be no Mistake I would repeat my Question over again after this manner Whether the Church of Rome now was in the same Purity Practice Power and Spirit that the Church in the Apostle's time was in When they saw we would be exact with them they flew off and denied that saying It was Presumption in any to say they had the same Power and Spirit which the Apostles had But I told them It was Presumption in them to meddle with the Words of Christ and his Apostles and make People believe they succeeded the Apostles and yet be forced to Confess They were not in the same Power and Spirit that the Apostles were in This said I is a Spirit of Presumption and rebuked by the Apostles Spirit Then I shewed them how different their Fruits and Practices were from the Fruits and Practices of the Apostles Then got up one of them and said Ye are a Company of Dreamers Nay said I ye are the filthy Dreamers who dream ye are the Apostles Successors and yet Confess Ye have not the same Power and Spirit which the Apostles were in And are not they Defilers of the Flesh who say It is Presumption for any to say they have the same Power and Spirit which the Apostles had Now said I if ye have not the same Power and Spirit which the Apostles had then it is manifest that ye are led by another Power and Spirit than the Apostles and Church in the Primitive times were led by Then I began to tell them how that Evil Spirit which they were led by had led them to Pray by Beads and to Images and to set up Nunneries and Frieries and Monasteries and to put People to Death for Religion and this Practice of theirs I shewed them was below the Law and far short of the Gospel in which is Liberty They were soon weary of this Discourse and went their way and gave a Charge as we heard to the Papists That they should not dispute with us nor read any of our Books So we were rid of them But we had Reasonings with all the other Sects as Presbyterians Independents Seekers Baptists Episcopal-men Socinians Brownists Lutherans Calvinists Arminians Fifth-Monarchy-Men Familists Muggletonians and Ranters none of which would Affirm they had the same Power and Spirit that the Apostles had and were in So in that Power and Spirit the Lord gave us Dominion over them all As for the Fifth-Monarchy-Men I was moved to give forth a Paper to them to manifest their Error to them For they looked for Christ's Personal Coming in an outward Form and Manner and they fixed the time of it to the Year 1666 at which time some of them did prepare themselves when it Thundered and Rained thinking Christ was then come to set up his Kingdom and then they imagined they were to kill the Whore without them But I told them the Whore was alive in them and was not burnt with God's Fire nor judged in them with the same Power and Spirit the Apostles were in And their looking for Christ's Coming outwardly to set up his Kingdom was like the Pharisees Lo here and Lo there But Christ was come and had set up his Kingdom above Sixteen Hundred Years ago according to Nebuchadnezzar's Dream and Daniel's Prophecy and he had dash'd to pieces the Four Monarchies the great Image with its Head of Gold Breast and Arms of Silver Belly and Thighs of Brass Legs of Iron and Feet part of Iron part of Clay and they were all blown away with God's Wind as the Chaff in the Summer-threshing-Floor And when Christ was on Earth he said his Kingdom was not of this World If it had been his Servants would have fought but it was not therefore his Servants did not fight And therefore all the Fifth-Monarchy-Men that be Fighters with Carnal Weapons are none of Christ's Servants but the Beast's and the Whore's Christ said All Power in Heaven and in Earth is given to me So then his Kingdom was set up above Sixteen Hundred Years ago and he Reigns And we see Jesus Reign said the Apostle and he shall Reign till all things be put under his Feet though all things are not yet put under his Feet nor subdued This year several Friends were moved to go beyond the Seas to publish Truth in Forreign Countries John Stubbs and Henry Fell and Richard Costrop were moved to go towards China and Prester John's Country but no Masters of Ships would carry them With much ado they got a Warrant from the King but the East-India-Company found ways to avoid it and the Masters of their Ships would not carry them Then they went into Holland hoping to have got Passage there but no Passage could they get there neither Then John Stubs and Henry Fell took Shipping to go to Alexandria in Egypt intending to go by the Carravans from thence Mean while Daniel Baker being to go to Smirna he drew Richard Costrop contrary to his own Freedom to go along with him And in the passage Richard falling sick D. Baker left him sick in the Ship where he died But that hard-hearted Man afterwards lost his own Condition John Stubbs and Henry Fell got to Alexandria in Egypt but they had not been long there before the English Consul banished them from thence Yet before they came away they dispersed many Books and Papers there for the opening the Principles and Way of Truth to the Turks and Grecians They gave the Book called The Popes Strength broken to an Old Frier for him to give or send to the Pope which Book when the Frier had perused he clapped his Hand
upon his Breast and confess'd What was written therein was Truth but said he if I should confess to it openly they would burn me So John Stubs and Henry Fell not being suffered to go farther returned to England and came to London again And John had a Vision that the English and Dutch who had joined together not to carry them would fall out one with the other And so it came to pass Having now stay'd in London some time I felt drawings to visit Friends in Essex Essex Colchester Cogshall So I went down to Colchester where I had very large Meetings and from thence to Cogshall not far from which there was a Priest Convinced and I had a Meeting at his House And so travelling a little up and down in those Parts and visiting Friends in their Meetings there-aways London I returned pretty quickly to London where I found great Service for the Lord For a large Door was opened and many flocked in to our Meetings and the Lord's Truth spread mightily this Year Yet Friends had great Travels and sore Labours the rude People having been so heightned by the Monarchy-Men's Rising a little before But the Lord's Power was over all and in it Friends had Dominion though we had not only those Sufferings without but Sufferings within also by John Perrot and his Company who giving heed to a Spirit of Delusion sought to introduce and set up among Friends that evil and uncomely Practice of keeping on the Hat in time of publick Prayers Now Friends had spoken to him and divers of his Followers about it and I had written to them concerning it but He and some others rather strengthened themselves against Friends therein Wherefore feeling the Judgment of Truth rise against it I gave forth the following Lines as a Warning to all that were concerned therein WHosoever is tainted with this Spirit of John Perrot it will perish Mark theirs and his End that are turned into those outward things and Janglings about them and that which is not savoury all which is for perpetual Judgment and is to be swept and cleansed out of the Camp of God's Elect. This is to that Spirit that is gone into Jangling about that which is below the Rotten Principle of the old Ranters and gone from the Invisible Power of God in which is the Everlasting Fellowship and so many are become like the Corn on the House-top and like the untimely Figs and now clamour and speak against them that be in the Power of God O consider the Light and Power of God goes over you all and leaves you in the fretting Nature out of the Unity which is in the Everlasting Light Life and Power of God Consider this before the Day be gone from you and take heed that your Memorial be not rooted out from among the Righteous G. F. Among the Exercises and Troubles that Friends had from without one was concerning Friends Marriages which sometimes were â—â—lled in question And in this Year there happened to be a Cause Tryed at the Assize at Nottingham concerning a Friend's Marriage The Case was thus Some Years before Two Friends were joined together in Marriage amongst Friends and lived together as Man and Wife about two Years Then the Man died leaving his Wife with Child and leaving an Estate in Lands of Copy-hold When the Woman was delivered the Jury presented the Child Heir to its Father's Lands and accordingly the Child was admitted Afterwards another Friend married the Widow And after that a Man that was Near of Kin to her former Husband brought his Action against the Friend that had last married her endeavouring to dispossess them and deprive the Child of the Inheritance and to possess himself thereof as next Heir to the Woman's first Husband And to effect this he endeavoured to prove the Child Illegitimate alledging The Marriage was not according to Law In opening the Cause the Plaintiff's Counsel did use unseemly Words concerning Friends saying That they went together like Brute Beasts with other ill Expressions After the Counsels on both sides had pleaded the Judge viz. Judge Archer took the matter in hand and opened it to the Jury telling them That there was a Marriage in Paradise when Adam took Eve and Eve took Adam and that it was the Consent of the Parties that made a Marriage And for the Quakers he said he did not know their Opinions but he did not believe they went together as Brute Beasts as had been said of them but as Christians and therefore he did believe the Marriage was lawful and the Child lawful Heir And the better to satisfie the Jury he brought them a Case to this purpose A Man that was weak of Body and kept his Bed had a desire in that Condition to Marry and did declare before Witnesses that he did take such a Woman to be his Wife and the Woman declared that she took that Man to be her Husband This Marriage was afterwards called in Question and as the Judge said all the Bishops did at that time conclude it to be a Lawful Marriage Hereupon the Jury gave in their Verdict for the Friend's Child and against the Man that would have deprived it of its Inheritance About this time the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy were tendred unto Friends as a Snare because it was known we could not Swear and thereupon many were Imprisoned and divers Premunired Upon that occasion Friends published in Print the Grounds and Reasons why they refused to swear Besides which I was moved to give forth these few Lines following to be given to the Magistrates THE World saith Kiss the Book But the Book saith Kiss the Son lest he be angry And the Son saith Swear not at all but keep to Yea and Nay in all your Communications for whatsoever is more than this cometh of Evil. Again the World saith Lay your hand on the Book but the Book saith Handle the Word And the Word saith Handle not the Traditions nor the Inventions nor the Rudiments of the World And God saith This is my beloved Son hear him who is the Life and the Truth and the Light and the Way to God G. F. Now there being very many Frionds in Prison in the Nation Richard Hubberthorn and I drew up a Paper concerning them and got it delivered to the King that he might understand how we were dealt with by his Officers It was directed thus For the KING FRiend who art the Chief Ruler of these Dominions here is a List of some of the Sufferings of the People of God in scorn called Quakers that have suffered under the Changeable Powers before thee by whom there have been Imprisoned and under whom there have suffered for good Conscience-sake and for bearing Testimony to the Truth as it is in Jesus Three Thousand One Hundred Seventy Three Persons And there lie yet in Prison in the Name of the Commonwealth Seventy Three Persons that we know of And there have died in Prison
occasion Wherefore I desired William Smith to go speak with the Woman and let her know if she would let us have a Room and let our Friends come up out of the Dungeon and leave it to us and them to give her what we would it might be better for her He went and after some reasoning with her she consented and we were had into a Room Then we were told that the Jailer would not suffer us to fetch any Drink out of the Town into the Prison but that what Beer we drank we must take of him I told them I would remedy that if they would for we would get a Pale of Water and a little Wormwood once a day and that might serve us So we should have none of his Beer and the Water he could not deny us Before we came there when those few Friends that were Prisoners there did Meet together on the First-Days if any of them was moved to pray to the Lord the Jailer would come up with his great Quarter-staff in his Hand and his Mastiff-Dog at his Heels and would pluck them down by the Hair of the Head and strike them with his Staff but when he struck Friends the Mastiff-Dog instead of falling upon Friends would take the Staff out of his Hand Now when the First-Day came after we came in I spake to one of my Fellow-Prisoners to carry down a Stool and set it in the Yard and give notice to the Debtors and Fellons that there would be a Meeting in the Yard and they that would hear the Word of the Lord declared might come thither So the Debtors and Prisoners went into the Yard and we went down and had a very precious Meeting the Jailer not meddling Thus every First-Day we had a Meeting there as long as we stay'd in Prison and several came in out of the City and Country and many were Convinced and some received the Lord's Truth there who stood faithful Witnesses for it ever since When the Sessions came we were had up before the Justices Leicester Sessions with many more Friends that were sent to Prison whilst we were there to the number of about Twenty Being brought into the Court the Jailer put us into the Place where the Thieves were put and then some of the Justices began to tender the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy to us I told them I never took any Oath in my Life and they knew we could not Swear because Christ and his Apostle forbad it and therefore they put it but as a Snare to us But we told them if they could prove that after Christ and the Apostle had forbid Swearing they did ever command Christians to Swear then we would take these Oaths otherwise we were resolved to obey Christ's Command and the Apostle's Exhortation They said We must take the Oath that we might manifest our Allegiance to the King I told them I had been formerly sent up a Prisoner by Col. Hacker from that Town to London under pretence that I held Meetings to plot to bring in King Charles I also desired them to read our Mittimus which set forth the Cause of our Commitment to be that we were To have a Meeting and I said he that was called Lord Beaumont could not by that Act send us to Jail unless we had been taken at a Meeting and found to be such Persons as the Act speaks of therefore we desired they would read the Mittimus 1662. Leicester Sessions and see how wrongfully we were Imprisoned They would not take notice of the Mittimus but called a Jury and Indicted us for Refusing to take the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy When the Jury was Sworn and Instructed as they were going out one that had been an Alderman of the City spake to them and bid them Have a good Conscience and one of the Jury being a peevish Man told the Justices There was One affronted the Jury Whereupon they called him up and tendred him the Oath also and he took it While we were standing in the Place where the Thieves used to stand there was a Cut-Purse had his Hand in several Friends Pockets and Friends declared it to the Justices and shewed them the Man They called him up before them and upon Examination he could not deny it yet they set him at Liberty It was not long before the Jury Returned and brought us in Guilty and then after some Words the Justices Whispered together and bid the Jailer take us down to Prison again But the Lord's Power was over them and his Everlasting Truth which we declared boldly amongst them And there being a great Concourse of People most of them followed us so that the Cryer and Bayliffs were sain to call the People back again to the Court We declared the Truth as we went down the Streets all along Leicester Jail till we came to the Jail the Streets being full of People When we were in our Chamber again after some time the Jailer came to us and desired all to go forth that were not Prisoners And when they were gone he said Gentlemen it is the Court's Pleasure that ye should all be set at liberty except those that are in for Tithes and you know there are Fees due to me but I shall leave it to you to give me what you will Thus were we all set at Liberty on a sudden And being thus set at Liberty the rest passed every one into their Services only Leonard Fell being come thither stay'd with me and we two went again to Swanington Swanington I had a Letter from him they called the Lord Hastings who hearing of my Imprisonment had written from London to the Justices at the Sessions to set me at Liberty Now I had not delivered this Letter to the Justices but whether they had any knowledge of his Mind from any other hand which made them discharge us so suddenly I know not But this Letter I carried to him called the Lord Beaumont who had sent us to Prison and when he had broken it open and read it he seemed much troubled but at last came a little lower yet threatned us if we had any more Meetings at Swanington he would break them up and send us to Prison again But notwithstanding his Threats we went to Swanington and had a Meeting with Friends there and he came not nor sent not to break it up From Swanington we passed through the Country and came to a Place called Twy-Cross Twy-Cross where that Great Man formerly mentioned whom the Lord God had raised up from his Sickness in the Year 1649 and whose Serving-man came at me with a Drawn Sword to have done me a Mischief He and his Wife came to see me From thence we travelled through Warwickshire Warwickshire where we had brave Meetings and so into Northamptonshire and Bedfordshire visiting Friends 1662. Northamptonshire Bedfordshire London Essex Norfolk Norwich Sutton Cambridgeshire till we came to London I stay'd
Strife with Strife And therefore Live in the Peaceable Life doing Good to all Men and seeking the Good and Welfare of all Men. Let this go among Friends every where G. F. We went from York to Burrowbridge Burrowbridge where I had a glorious Meeting Thence we passed into the Bishoprick to one Richmond's where there was a General Meeting and the Lord's Power was over all Bishoprick of Durham tho' People were grown exceeding Rude about this time After the Meetting we went to Henry Draper's where we stay'd all Night and the next Morning a Friend came to me as I was passing away and told me If the Priests and Justices for many Priests were made Justices in that Country at that time could light on me they would Destroy me But I being clear of the Bishoprick Stainmoor Yorkshire Sedberg Westmoreland Lancashire Swarthmore Arnside went over Stainmoore into part of Yorkshire and to Sedberg where having visited Friends I went into Westmorland visiting Friends there also From thence I passed into Lancashire and came to Swarthmore where I staid but a little while before I went over the Sands to Arnside where I had a General Meeting After that Meeting was ended there came some Men to have broken it up but understanding before they got thither that the Meeting was over they turned back I went to Robert Widder's and from thence to Vnderbarrow Underbarrow where I had a glorious Meeting and the Lord's Power was set over all From thence I passed to Grayrigge and having visited Friends there I went to Ann Audland's Grayrigge where they would have had me to have staid their Meeting the next day but I felt a stop in my Spirit and it was upon me to go to John Blaykling's in Sedberg and to be next day at the Meeting there Sedberg which is large and a precious People there is So we had a very good Meeting next day at Sedberg but the Constables went to Ann Audland's to their Meeting to look for me Thus by the good Hand and Disposing Providence of the Lord I escaped their Snare I went from John Blaykling's with Leonard Fell to Strickland-head Strickland-head where on the First-Day we had a very precious Meeting on the Common That Night we staid amongst Friends there and the next day passed into Northumberland Northumberland After the Justices had heard of this Meeting at Strickland-head they made Search for me but by the good hand of the Lord I escaped them again though there were some very wicked Justices We went to Hugh Hutchinson's House in Northumberland a Friend in the Ministry from whence we visited Friends thereabouts and then went to Darwin-Water Darwin-water where we had a very glorious Meeting There came an Ancient Woman to me and told me her Husband remembred his Love to me and she said I might call him to mind by this Token that I used to call him the Tall White Old Man She said he was Six score and two Years old and that he would have come to the Meeting but that his Horses were all imployed upon some urgent Occasion I heard he lived some Years after 1663. Darwin-water Cumberland Now when I had visited Friends in those parts and they were settled upon Christ their Foundation their Rock and their Teacher I passed through Northumberland and came into Cumberland to old Thomas Bewley's And Friends came about me and said Would I come there to go into Prison For there was great Persecution in that Country at that time Yet I had a General Meeting at Thomas Bewley's which was large and precious and the Lord's Power was over all One Musgrave was at that time Deputy Governour of Carlisle and I passing along the Country came to a Man's House that had been Convinced whose Name was Fletcher and he told me If Musgrave knew that I was there he would be sure to send me to Prison he was such a severe Man But I staid not there only called on the way to see this Man Wigton and then went on to one William Pearson's near Wigton where the Meeting was which was very large and precious Some Friends were then Prisoners at Carlisle whom I visited by Letter which Leonard Fell carried From William Pearson's I passed through the Countries Pardsey-Crag visiting Friends till I came to Pardsey-Crag where we had a General Meeting which was large and all was quiet and peaceable and the glorious powerful Presence of the Everlasting God was with us So eager were the Magistrates about this time to stir up Persecution in those parts that they offered some Five Shillings some a Noble a day to any that could apprehend the Speakers amongst the Quakers but it being now the time of the Quarter-Sessions in that County the Men who were so hired were gone to the Sessions to see to get their Wages and so all our Meetings were at that time quiet Westmoreland Keswick From Pardsey-Crag we went into Westmorland calling in the way upon Hugh Tickell near Keswick and upon Thomas Laythes where Friends came to visit us and we had a fine opportunity to be refreshed together At Fr. Benson ' s. We went that Night to one Francis Benson's in Westmorland near Justice Fleming's House This Justice Fleming was at that time in a great Rage against Friends and me in particular insomuch that in the open Sessions at Kendal just before he had bid Five Pounds to any Man that should take me that Friend Francis Benson told me And it seems as I went to this Friend's House I met one Man coming from the Sessions that had this Five Pounds offered him to take me and he knew me for as I passed by him he said to his Companion That is George Fox Yet he had not Power to touch me for the Lord's Power preserved me over them all And the Justices being so eager to haue me and I being so often nigh them and yet they missing me it tormented them the more Lancashire Cartmel I went from thence to James Taylor 's at Cartmel in Lancashire where I staid the First-Day and had a precious Meeting and after the Meeting was done I came over the Sands to Swarthmore Swarthmore When I came there they told me Col. Kirby had sent his Lieutenant thither to search for me and that he had searched Trunks and Chests for me That Night as I was in Bed I was moved of the Lord to go next day to Kirby-Hall Kirby-Hall which was Col. Kirby's House about Five Miles off to speak with him and I did so When I came thither I found there the Flemmings and several others of the Gentry so called of the Country who were come to take their Leave of Col. Kirby he being then to go up to London to the Parliament 1663. Kirby-Hall I was had into the Parlour amongst them but Col. Kirby was not then within being gone forth a little way
know How long I had lain in Prison and for what and he did so And when he came down again he told me that Esq Marsh said He would go an Hundred Miles bare-foot for my Liberty he knew me so well And several others he said spake well of me From which time the Governour was very Loving to me There were amongst the Prisoners that were there Two very bad Men that would often sit drinking with the Officers and Souldiers and because I would not sit and drink with them too that made them the worse against me One time when these Two Prisoners were drunk one of them whose Name was William Wilkinson who was a Presbyterian and had been a Captain came to me and challenged me to fight with him I seeing what Condition he was in got out of his way and next Morning when he was grown more sober told him How unmanly a thing it was in him to challenge a Man to fight whose Principle he knew it was not to strike but if he was stricken on one Ear to turn the other And I told him If he had a mind to fight he should have challenged some of the Souldiers that could have answered him in his own way But however I told him seeing he had Challenged me I was now come to Answer him with my Hands in my Pockets and reaching my Head towards him Here said I here is my Hair here are my Cheeks here is my Back With that he skipt away from me and went into another Room At which the Souldiers fell a laughing and one of the Officers said You are a happy Man that can bear such things Thus he was Conquered without a Blow But after a while he took the Oath and gave Bond and got out of Prison and not long after the Lord cut him off There were great Imprisonments in this and the former Years while I was Prisoner at Lancaster and Scarborough At London many Friends were crowded into Newgate and other Prisons where the Sickness was and many Friends died in Prison Many Friends also were Banished and several sent on Ship-board by the King's Order Some Masters of Ships would not carry them but set them on Shore again yet some were sent to Barbados and to Jamaica and to Mevis and the Lord blessed them there There was one Master of a Ship was very wicked and cruel to Friends that were put on Board his Ship for he kept the Friends down under Decks though the Sickness was amongst them so that many died of it But the Lord plagued him for his Wickedness for he lost most of his Sea-men by the Plague and lay several Months crossed with Contrary Winds though other Ships went out and made their Voyages At last he came before Plimouth and there the Governour and Magistrates would not suffer him nor any of his Men to come ashore though he wanted many Necessaries for his Voyage but Thomas Lower and Arthur Cotton and John Light and some other Friends went to the Ship's-side and carried Necessaries for the Friends that were Prisoners on Board The Master being thus crost and plagued and vext he cursed them that put him upon this Freight and said He hoped he should not go far before be was taken And the Vessel was but a little while gone out of sight of Plimouth but she was taken by a Dutch-man of War and carried into Holland When they came into Holland the States there sent the Banished Friends back to England with a Letter of Pasport and a Certificate That they had not made an Escape but were sent back by them But in time the Lord's Power wrought over this Storm and many of our Persecutors were Confounded and put to shame After I had lain Prisoner above a Year in Scarborough-Castle I sent a Letter to the King in which I gave him an Account of my Imprisonment and the bad Vsage I had had in Prison and also that I was Informed no Man could deliver me but he After this John Whitehead being at London and having Acquaintance also with him that was called Esq Marsh he went to Visit him and spake to him about me And he undertook if John Whitehead would get the State of my Case drawn up to deliver it to the Master of Requests whom he called Sir John Birkenhead he would endeavour to get a Release for me So John Whitehead and Ellis Hookes drew up a Relation of my Imprisonment and Sufferings and carried it to Marsh and he went with it to the Master of Requests who procured an Order from the King for my Release The Substance of the Order was That the King being certainly Informed that I was a Man principled against Plotting and Fighting and had been ready at all times to discover Plots rather than to make any c. that therefore his Royal Pleasure was that I should be discharged from my Imprisonment c. As soon as this Order was obtained John Whitehead came down to Scarborough with it and delivered it to the Governour Who upon Receipt thereof gathered the Officers together and without requiring Bond or Sureties for my peaceable Living being satisfied that I was a Man of a peaceable Life he discharged me freely and gave me the following Pasport PErmit the Bearer hereof George Fox late a Prisoner here and now discharged by His Majesty's Order quietly to pass about his Lawful Occasions without any Molestation Given under my hand at Scarborough-Castle this First Day of September 1666. JORDAN CROSLANDS Governour of Scarborough-Castle After I was Released I would have given the Governour something Scarborough for the Civility and Kindness he had of late shewed me but he would not receive any thing but said Whatever Good he could do for me and my Friends he would do it and never do them any hurt And afterwards if at any time the Mayor of the Town sent to him for Souldiers to break up Friends Meetings if he sent any down he would privately give them a Charge Not to meddle and so he continued Loving to his Dying-Day The Officers also and the Souldiers were mightily changed and grown very Respectful to me and when they had occasion to speak of me they would say He is as stiff as a Tree and as pure as a Bell for we could never bow him The very next day after I was Released from Scarborough-Prison the Fire brake out at London and the Report of it came quickly down into the Country Then I saw the Lord God was true and just in his Word which he had shewed me before in Lancaster-Jail when I saw the Angel of the Lord with a glittering drawn Sword Southward as is before expressed And the People of London were forewarned of this Fire yet few laid it to Heart or believed it but rather grew more Wicked and higher in Pride For we had a Friend that was moved to come out of Huntington-shire a little before the Fire and to scatter his Money up and down the
Streets and to turn his Horse loose in the Streets and to untie the Knees of his Britches and let his Stockings fall down and to unbutton his Doublet and told the People So should they run up and down scattering their Money and their Goods half undrest like mad People as he was a Sign to them And so they did when the Fire brake out and the City was burning Thus hath the Lord exercised his Prophets and Servants by his Power and shewed them Signs of his Judgments and sent them to fore-warn the People but instead of Repenting they have beaten and cruelly entreated some and some they have Imprisoned both in the former Power 's days and since 1666. Scarborough But the Lord is just and happy are they that obey his Word Some have been moved to go Naked in their Streets in the other Power 's days and since as Signs of their Nakedness and have declared amongst them That God would strip them out of their Hypocritical Professions and make them as bare and naked as they were But instead of considering it they have many times whipt or otherwise abused them and sometimes Imprisoned them Others have been moved to go in Sack cloth and to denounce the Woes and Vengeance of God against the Pride and Haughtiness of the People But few regarded it And in the other Powers days the Wicked Envious Professing Priests put up several Petitions both to Oliver and Richard called Protectors and to the Parliaments Judges and Justices against us stuft full of Lies and vilifying Words and Slanders but we got Copies of them and through the Lord's Assistance answered them all and cleared the Lord's Truth and our selves of them But oh the Body of Darkness that rose against the Truth in them that made Lies their Refuge But the Lord swept them away and in and with his Power Truth Light and Life hedged his Lambs about and did preserve them as on Eagle's Wings Therefore we all had and have great Encouragement to Trust the Lord whom we did see by his Power and Spirit how he did overturn and bring to nought all the Confederacies and Counsels that were hatched in the Darkness against his Truth and People and by the same Truth gave his People Dominion that in it they might serve him And indeed I could not but take notice how the Hand of the Lord turned against those my Persecutors who had been the cause of my Imprisonment or had been Abusive or Cruel to me in it For the Officer that fetched me to Houlker-Hall wasted his Estate and soon after fled into Ireland And most of the Justices that were upon the Bench at the Sessions when I was sent to Prison died in a while after as Old Tho. Preston Rawlinson and Porter and Matthew West of Borwick And though Justice Fleming did not die yet his Wife died and left him thirteen or fourteen Motherless Children who had Imprisoned Two Friends to Death and thereby made several Children Fatherless Col. Kirby never prospered after And the Chief Constable Richard Dodgson died soon after and Mount the Petty-Constable and the other Petty-Constable John Ashburnham his Wife who railed at me in her House died soon after And William Knipe that was the Witness they brought against me died soon after also And Hunter the Jailer of Lancaster who was very wicked to me while I was his Prisoner he was cut off in his Young Days And the Vnder-Sheriff that carried me from Lancaster-Prison towards Scarborough he lived not long after And one Joblin the Jailer of Durham who was Prisoner with me in Scarborough-Castle and had often incensed the Governour and Souldiers against me though he got out of Prison yet the Lord cut him off in his Wickedness soon after When I came into that Country again most of these that dwelt in Lancashire were dead and others ruined in their Estates So that though I did not seek Revenge upon them for their actings against me contrary to the Law yet the Lord had executed his Judgments upon many of them Being now set free from my Imprisonment in Scarborough-Castle I went about three Miles to a large General Meeting at a Friend's House that had been a Chief-Constable and all was quiet and well On the Fourth Day after I came into Scarborough again and had a Meeting in the Town at Peter Hodgson's House To this Meeting came one called a Lady and several other Great Persons also a Young-man that was Son to the Bayliff of the Town and had been Convinced while I was there in Prison That Lady so called came to me and said I spake against the Ministers I told her Such as the Prophets and Christ declared against formerly I declared against now From hence I went to Whitby and having visited Friends there Whitby I passed thence to Burlington where I had another Meeting Burlington Oram and from thence to Oram where I had another Meeting and from thence to Oram where I had another Meeting and from thence to Marmaduke Stor's and had a large Meeting at a Constable's House Mar. Stor on whom the Lord had wrought a great Miracle Next Day Two Friends being to take each other in Marriage there was a very great Meeting which I was at And I was moved to open to the People the State of our Marriages declaring How the People of God took one another in the Assemblies of the Elders and how that it was God that did Join Man anâ— Woman together before the Fall And though Men had taken upon them to Join in the Fall yet in the Restoration it was God's Joining that was the right and honourable Marriage But never any Priest did Marry any that we read of in the Scriptures from Genesis to the Revelations Then I shewed them the Duty of Man and Wife how they should serve God being Heirs of Life and Grace together After the Meeting I passed from thence to Grace Barwick G. Barwick where I had a General Meeting which was very large and when that was over I came to Richard Shipton's where I had another Meeting Whitby and so to a Priest's House whose Wife was Convinced and himself grown very Loving and glad to see me This was that Priest that in the Year 1651. threatned If ever he met with me again he would have my Life or I should have his and said He would lose his Head if I were not knockt down in a Month But now he was partly Convinced and become very kind I went from his House towards the Sea where several Friends came to visit me and amongst others one Philip Scarff who had formerly been a Priest but having received the Truth was now become a Preacher of Christ freely and continued so Passing on I called to see an Ancient Man who was Convinced of Truth and was above an Hundred Years old Then came I to a Friend's House where I had a great Meeting and quiet Near Malton And
Fair at which I met with many Friends Then passing through the Forrest in a mighty thundering and rainy day Nottingham I came to Nottingham and so great was the Tempest that day that many Trees were torn up by the Roots and some People killed but the Lord preserved us On the First-Day following I had a large Meeting in Nottingham very quiet and Friends were come to sit under their Teacher the Grace of God which brought them Salvation and were established upon the Rock and Foundation Christ Jesus After the Meeting I went to visit the Friend that had been Sheriff about the Year 1649 whose Prisoner I had then been 1666. Leicestershire Syleby Leicester From Nottingham I passed into Leicestershire and came to Syleby where we had a large blessed Meeting After which I went to Leicester to visit the Prisoners there and then came to John Penford's where we had a General Meeting large and precious From thence I passed through the Country visiting Friends and my Relations till I came into Warwickshire and to Warwick where having visited the Prisoners Warwickshire Warwick Badgley Northamptonshire Bedfordshire Buckinghamshire Oxfordshire London I passed from thence to Badgley and had a precious Meeting there Then I travelled through Northamptonshire Bedfordshire Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire visiting Friends in each County In Oxfordshire the Devil had laid a Snare for me but the Lord brake it and his Power came over all and his blessed Truth spread and Friends were Increased therein Thus after I had passed through many Counties visiting Friends and had had many large and precious Meetings amongst them I came at last to London But I was so weak with lying almost Three Years in cruel and hard Imprisonments and my Joints and my Body were so stiff and benummed that I could hardly get on my Horse or bend my Joints nor well bear to be near the Fire or to eat Warm Meat I had been kept so long from it Being come to London I walk't a little among the Ruins and took good notice of them and I saw the City lying according as the Word of the Lord came to me concerning it several Years before Now after I had been a time in London and had visited Friends Meetings through the City I went into the Country again and had large Meetings in the Countries Kingston Reading Wiltshire Bristol as I went at Kingston Reading and in Wiltshire till I came to Bristol At Bristol also I had many large Meetings and Thomas Lower came thither out of Cornwal to meet me and Friends were there from several parts of the Nation it being then the Fair-time After I was clear of Bristol I left that City and went to Nath. Crips's N. Crips's London and so through the Countries till I came back to London again having large Meetings in the way and all quiet blessed be the Lord. And thus though I was very Weak yet I travelled up and down in the Service of the Lord and the Lord enabled me to go through in it About this time some that had run out from Truth and clashed against Friends were reached unto by the Power of the Lord which came wonderfully over and made them Condemn and Tear their Papers of Controversies to pieces Several Meetings we had with them and the Lord 's Everlasting Power was over all and set Judgment on the Head of that that had run out And in these Meetings which lasted whole Days several that had Run out with John Perrot and others came in again and Condemned that Spirit that led them to Keep on their Hats when Friends prayed and when they themselves prayed and some of them said That Friends were more righteous than they and that if Friends had not stood they had been gone and had fallen into Perdition And thus the Lord's Power was wonderfully manifested and came over all Then was I moved of the Lord to recommend the setting up of Five Monthly Meetings of Men and Women in the City of London besides the Womens-Meetings and the Quarterly Meetings to take care of God's Glory and to admonish and exhort such as walked disorderly or carelesly and not according to Truth For whereas Friends had had only Quarterly Meetings now Truth was spread 1667. London and Friends were grown more Numerous I was moved to Recommend the setting up of Monthly Meetings throughout the Nation And the Lord opened to me and let me see What I must do and how the Mens and Womens Monthly and Quarterly Meetings should be ordered and established in this Nation and in other Nations and that I should Write to them where I came not to do the same So after things were well settled at London and the Lord's Truth and Power and Seed and Life reigned and shined over all in the City then I passed forth into the Countries again and went down into Essex Essâ—x Suffolk Norfolk And after the Monthly Meetings were settled in that County I went from thence into Suffolk and Norfolk Thomas Dry being with me And when we had Visited Friends in their Meetings in those parts and the Monthly Meetings were settled there we pass'd from thence and went into Huntingtonshire Huntingtoâ—shire where we had very large and blessed Meetings and though we met with some Opposition there yet the Lord's Power came over all and the Monthly Meetings were established there also Bedfordshire When we came into Bedfordshire we had great Opposition but the Lord's Power came over it all Afterwards we went into Nottinghamshire Nottinghamshire where we had many precious Meetings and the Monthly Meetings were settled there Then passing into Lincolnshire Lincolnshire we had a Meeting of some Men-Friends of all the Meetings in the County at his House who had been formerly Sheriff of Lincoln and all was quiet Trent Nottinghamshire After this Meeting we passed over Trent into Nottinghamshire again he that had been the Sheriff of Lincoln being with me where we had some of all the Meetings in that County together and our Meeting was glorious and peaceable And many precious Meetings we had in that County At that time William Smith was very Weak and Sick and the Constables and others had seized upon all his Goods to the very Bed he lay upon for Truth 's sake These Officers threatned to come and break up our Meeting but the Lord's Power chained them so that they had not power to meddle with us blessed be his Name After the Meeting was over I went to visit William Smith and there were the Constables and others watching his Corn and his Beasts that none of them might be Removed From thence we passed into Leicestershire and so into Warwickshire Leicestershire Warwickshire where many blessed Meetings we had and the Order of the Gospel was set up and the Men's Monthly Meetings established in all those Counties Then we went into Darbyshire Darbyshire where we had several
him Upon this occasion I writ a Letter to the Justices and to the Judge of the Assize which was then at hand And I imployed some Friends to carry it to the Justices first The Justice to whom the Clerk belonged rebuked his Clerk and the others also for disturbing and abusing us upon the High-Way So that those Men were glad to come and make Intreaty to Friends not to appear against them at the Assize which upon their Submission and Acknowledgment of their Fault Friends granted And this thing was of good Service in the Country for it stopt many rude People that before had been forward to abuse Friends 1667. Herefordshire We passed into Herefordshire where we had several blessed Meetings and we had a General Mens-Meeting also where all the Monthly Meetings were settled There was about this time a Proclamation against Meetings and as we came through Herefordshire we were told of a great Meeting there was of the Presbyterians who had engaged themselves to stand and give up all rather than forsake their Meetings But when they heard of this Proclamation the People came but the Priest was gone and then they were at a loss Then they met in Lemster privately and provided Bread and Cheese and Drink in readiness that if the Officers should come they would put up their Bibles and fall to Eating The Bayliff found them out and came in among them and said Their Bread and Cheese should not cover them but he would have their Speakers They cried What then would become of their Wives and Children But he took their Speakers and kept them a while This the Bayliff told our Friend Peter Young and said They were the veriest Hypocrites that ever made a Profession of Religion The like Contrivance they had in other places For there was one Pocock at London that married Abigail Darcy who was called a Lady and she being Convinc'd of Truth I went to his House to see her This Pocock had been one of the Triers of the Priests and being an high Presbyterian and envious against us he used to call our Friends House-Creepers Now I going to visit his Wife and he being present she said to me I have something to speak to thee against my Husband ' Nay said I thou must not speak against thy Husband Yes said she but I must in this Case The last First-Day said she He and his Priests and People the Presbyterians met and they had Candles and Tobacco-Pipes and Bread and Cheese and Cold Meat on the Table and they agreed before-hand that if the Officers should come in upon them then they would leave their Preaching and Praying and would fall to their Cold Meat Oh said I to him is not this a Shame to you who Persecuted and Imprisoned us and spoiled our Goods because we would not follow you and be of your Religion and called us House-Creepers and now ye do not stand to your own Religion your selves Did ye ever find our Meetings stufft with Bread and Cheese and Tobacco-pipes Or did ye ever read in the Scriptures of any such Practice among the Saints Why said the Old Man We must be as wise as Serpents Then said I This is the Serpent's Wisdom indeed But who said I would ever have thought that you Presbyterians and Independents who persecuted and imprisoned others and spoiled their Goods and whipped such as would not follow your Religion should now flinch your selves and not dare to stand to and own your own Religion but cover it with Tobacco-pipes Flagons of Drink Cold Meat and Bread and Cheese But this and such like deceitful Practices I understood afterwards were too Common amongst them in times of Persecution Now after we had travelled through Herefordshire and Meetings were well settled there Monmouthshire we passed into Monmouthshire where I had several blessed Meetings and at Walter Jenkins who had been a Justice of the Peace we had a large Meeting where were some Convinced This Meeting was quiet But at another Meeting that we had before this there came the Bayliff of the Hundred 1667. Monmouthshire almost drunk pretending he was to take up the Speakers There was a mighty Power of God in the Meeting so that although he raged the Power of the Lord limited him that he could not break up the Meeting When the Meeting was over I staid a while and he staid also but after some time I spake to him and so passed quietly away At Night some rude People came and shot off a Musket against the House but did not hurt any body Thus the Lord's Power came over all and chained down the unruly Spirits so that we escaped them and came to Ross that Night and had a Meeting there at James Merricks Ross After this we came into Gloucestershire Glouâ—estershire and had a General Mens-Meeting at Nathaniel Crips's House where all the Monthly Meetings were settled in the Lord 's Everlasting Power and the Heirs of Salvation were exhorted to take their Possessions of the Gospel the Power of God which was and is the Authority of their Meetings Many blessed Meetings we had up and down in that Country before we came to Bristol whither also we went Briâ—tol And after we had had several powerful Meetings there the Mens and Womens-Meetings were settl'd there also Now as I was lying in Bed at Bristol the Word of the Lord came to me that I must go back to London Next Morning Alexander Parker and several others came to me and I asked them What they felt They in like manner asked me What was upon me I told them I felt I must return to London and they said the same was upon them So we gave up to return to London for which Way the Lord moved and led us thither we went in his Power Wherefore leaving Bristol we passed into Wiltshire Wiltshire and established the Mens-Monthly-Meetings in the Lord's Power there and then passed through the Countries visiting Friends till we came to London London After we had visited Friends in the City and had staid there a while I was moved to exhort them to bring all their Marriages to the Mens and Womens-Meetings that they might lay them before the Faithful there that so Care might be taken to prevent those Disorders that had been committed by some For many had gone together in Marriage contrary to their Relations minds and some young raw People that came among us had mixed with the World and Widows had married and had not made provision for their Children by their former Husbands before their Second Marriage And although I had given forth a Paper concerning Marriages about the Year 1653 when Truth was but little spread over the Nation Advising Friends who might be concerned in that Case That they might lay it before the Faithful in time before any thing were Concluded and afterward publish it in the end of a Meeting or in a Market as they were moved thereto
blamed us for leaving them and each of them said Theirs was the right-Reformed-Church But I said if we could own any outward City or Place to be the Mother Church we should own outward Jerusalem where the Gospel was first preached by Christ himself and the Apostles where Christ suffered where the great Conversion to Christianity by Peter was where were the Types Figures and Shadows which Christ ended and where Christ commanded his Disciples To wait until they were endued with Power from high So if any outward place deserved to be called the Mother that was the place where the first great Conversion to Christianity was But the Apostle saith Gal. 4.25 26. Jerusalem which now is in Bondage with her Children But Jerusalem which is above is free which is the Mother of us all For it is written Rejoyce thou barren that bearest not break forth and cry thou that travailest not for the Desolate hath many more Children than she that hath an Husband ver 27. Now this we do see that Jerusalem below which was the highest Place of Worship and all that be like her in Profession without Possession have more Children than the Free Woman that hath an Husband which is Jerusalem that is above the Mother of us all that be true Christians So the Apostle doth not say Outward Jerusalem was the Mother though the first and great Conversion to Christianity was there And therefore there is less Reason for the Title Mother to be given to Rome or to any other outward Place or City by the Children of Jerusalem that is above and free and they are not Jerusalem's Children that is above and free who give â—he Title of Mother either to outward Jerusalem or to Roâ—â— or to any other Place or Sect of People And though this Title Mother hath been given to Places and Sects amongst and by the degenerate Christians yet we say still as the Apostle said of Old Jerusalem that is above is the Mother of us all and we can own no other neither outward Jerusalem nor Rome nor any Sect of People for our Mother but Jerusalem which is above which is free the Mother of us all that are born again and become true Believers in the Light and who are grafted into Christ the Heavenly Vine For all who are born again of the Immortal Seed by the Word of God which lives and abides for ever feed upon the Milk of the Word the Breasts of Life and grow by it in Life and cannot acknowledge any other to be their Mother but Jerusalem which is above Oh! said Esq Marsh to the Papist You do not know this man If he would but come to Church now and then he would be a Brave Man After some other Discourse together I went aside with this Justice Marsh into another Room to speak with him concerning Friends for he was a Justice of Peace for Middlesex and being a Courtier the other Justices put much of the Management of matters upon him Now when we Two were alone together he told me He was in a streight how to Act between us and some other Dissenters For said he You cannot Swear and the Independents Baptists and Fifth-Monarchy-People say also They cannot Swear and therefore said he how shall I know how to distinguish betwixt you and them seeing they and you all say It is for Conscience sake that you cannot Swear Then said I I will shew thee how to distinguish For they or most of them thou speakest of can and do Swear in some Cases but we cannot Swear in any Case If a Man should steal their Cows or Horses and thou should'st ask them whether they would Swear they were theirs Many of them would readily do it But if thou try our Friends they cannot Swear for their own Goods Therefore when thou puttest the Oath of Allegiance to any of them ask them Whether they can Swear in any other case as for their Cow or Horse Which if they be really of us they cannot do though they can bear Witness to the Truth Hereupon I gave him a Relation of a Trial in Barkshire which was thus A Thief stole Two Beasts from a Friend of ours the Thief was taken and cast into Prison and the Friend appeared against him at the Assizes But some body having Informed the Judge that the Man that Prosecuted was a Quaker and could not Swear the Judge before he heard what the Friend could say said Is he a Quaker And will he not Swear Then tender him the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy So he cast the Friend into Prison and Premunired him and let the Thief go at Liberty that had stolen his Goods When I had related this Case Justice Marsh said That Judge was a wicked Man But said I If we could Swear in any Case we would take the Oath of Allegiance to the King who is to preserve the Laws that preserve every man in his Estate Whereas others that can Swear in some cases to preserve a part of their Estates if they be robbed will not take this Oath to the King who is to preserve them in their whole Estates and Bodies also So that thou may'st easily distinguish and put a difference betwixt us and other People This Justice Marsh was afterwards very serviceable to Friends in this and other Cases for he kept several both Friends and others from being premunired in those parts where he was a Justice And when Friends have been brought before him in the times of Persecution he set many of them at Liberty And when he could not avoid sending to Prison he sent some for a few Hours or for a Night At length he went to the King and told him He had sent some of us to Prison contrary to his Conscience and he could not do so any more Wherefore he removed his Family from Lime-house where he lived and took Lodgings near James's Park He told the King That if he would be pleased to give Liberty of Conscience that would quiet and settle all for then none could have any pretence to be uneasie And indeed he was a very serviceable man to Truth and Friends in his day We had great Service at London this year and the Lord's Truth came over all and many that had been out from Truth came in again this Year Confessing and Condemning their former Outgoings Now after I had stay'd some time in London I went forth into the Countries again visiting Friends in Surry and Sussex Surry Sussex and in other places that way and afterwards travelled Northward having Leonard Fell with me We visited Friends till we came to Warwick Warwick where many Friends were in Prison and we had a Meeting in the Town After that I passed from thence to Birmingham and to Badgely Birmingham Badgely At Badgely I had a large Meeting After which I passed through the Country visiting Friends till I came to Nottingham Nottingham where on the first day we had a precious
of Ireland But now after I was come back from Ireland and was come to Bristol and found Margaret Fell there it opened in me from the Lord that the thing should be now Accomplished And after we had discoursed the thing together I told her ' If she also was satisfied with the Accomplishing of it now she should first send for her Children ' which she did And when the rest of her Daughters were come I asked both them and her Sons in Law If they had any thing against it or for it desiring them to speak and they all severally expressed their Satisfaction therein Then I asked Margaret ' If she had fulfilled and performed her Husband's Will to her Children She replied The Children knew that Whereupon I asked them Whether if their Mother Married they should not lose by it And I asked Margaret Whether she had done any thing in lieu of it which might Answer it to the Children The Children said She had answered it to them and desired me to speak no more of that I told them I was plain and would have all things done plainly for I sought not any outward Advantage to my self So after I had Acquainted the Children with it our Intention of Marriage was laid before Friends both privately and publickly to the full Satisfaction of Friends many of whom gave Testimony thereunto that it was of God Afterwards a Meeting being appointed on purpose for the Accomplishing thereof in the Publick Meeting-House at Broad-Mead in Bristol we took each other in Marriage the Lord Joining us together in the Honourable Marriage in the Everlasting Covenant and Immortal Seed of Life In the Sense whereof living and weighty Testimonies were born thereunto by Friends in the Movings of the Heavenly Power which united us together Then was a Certificate relating both the Proceedings and the Marriage openly read and Signed by the Relations and by most of the Ancient Friends of that City besides many other Friends from divers parts of the Nation After we were Married we stay'd about a Week in Bristol and then went into the Country together to Oldstone Oldstone where taking our Leaves of each other in the Lord we parted betaking our selves each to our several Service Margaret returning homewards to the North and I passing on into the Countries in the Work of the Lord as before I travelled through Wiltshire Berkshire 1669. Wiltshire Berkshire Oxfordshire Buckinghamshire London Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire and so to London visiting Friends In all which Counties I had many large and precious Meetings Being in London it came upon me to write to Friends throughout the Nation about Putting out poor Children to Trades Wherefore I sent the following Epistle to the Quarterly Meetings of Friends in all Counties My Dear Friends LET every Quarterly Meeting make Inquiry through all the Monthly Meetings and other Meetings to know all Friends that be poor Widows or others that have Children fit to set forth to Apprenticeships so that once a Quarter you may set forth an Apprentice from your Quarterly Meeting and so you may set forth four in a Year in each County as need may be or more if there be occasion And this Apprentice when he comes out of his Time may help his Mother or Father and rear up the Family that is decayed and in so doing all may come to live comfortably as Men. For being done in your Quarterly Meetings ye will have knowledge through all the County in all the Monthly and particular Meetings of Masters that be fit for them and of such Trades as their Parents desire or you desire or the Children are most Inclinable too and so being placed forth as you shall order from your Quarterly Meetings to Friends they may be trained up in Truth and by this means in the Wisdom of God you may preserve Friends Children in the Truth and enable them to rear up their decayed Families and be a Strength and Help to them and Nursers and Preservers of their Relations in their ancient days And thus also things being ordered in the Wisdom of God you will take off a continual Maintenance and free your selves from much Cumber For in the Country ye know ye may set forth an Apprentice for a little to several Trades as Bricklayers or Masons Carpenters Wheel-rights Plough-rights Taylors Tanners Curriers Black-smiths Shoomakers Naylers Butchers and several other Trades that might be named as Weavers of Linnen and Woollen Stuffs and Serges And you may do well to have a Stock in your Quarterly-Meetings for that purpose and all that is given by any Friends at their Decease except it be given to some particular Vse Person or Meeting may be brought to the Publick Stock for that same purpose This will be a way for the preserving of many that are poor among you and it will be a way of making up poor Families In several Counties the same is practised already and some Quarterly Meetings do set forth Two Apprentices and sometimes they set forth Children of the World that are laid on the Parish You may bind them for fewer or more Years according to their Capacities In all which things the Wisdom of God will teach you by which ye may come to help the Children of poor Friends that they may come to rear up their Families and preserve them in the Fear of God So no more but my Love in the everlasting Seed by which ye will have Wisdom to order all things to the Glory of God London the first of the 11th Month 1669. G. F. 1669. Essex Hertfordshire I stay'd not long in London but having visited Friends and finding things there quiet and well the Lord's Power being over all I passed down into Essex and so into Hertfordshire where I had many precious Meetings But before I went out of London intending to go down as far as Leicestershire I writ a Letter to my Wife to acquaint her therewith that if she found it Convenient to her she might meet me there Cambridgeshire Huntingtonshire Leicestershire From Hertfordshire I turned into Cambridgeshire thence into Huntingtonshire and so into Leicestershire where instead of Meeting with my Wife I heard that she was Haled out of her House and carried to Lancaster-Prison again by an Order gotten from the King and Council to fetch her back to Prison upon the Old Premunire 1670. though she had been discharged from that Imprisonment by an Order from the King and Council the Year before Wherefore having visited Friends Derbyshire Warwickshire London as far as Leicestershire I returned by Derbyshire into Warwickshire and so through the Countries that way to London again having had many large and blessed Meetings in the several Counties I passed through and had been sweetly refreshed with and amongst Friends in my Travels As soon as I was got to London I hast'ned Mary Lower and Sarah Fell two of my Wife's Daughters to the King to acquaint him how their Mother was dealt with
Liberty the Friends that were with me asked me Grac. Meet Whether I would go I told them To Gracious-Street-Meeting again if it were not over When we came there the People were generally gone only some few stood at the Gate We went into Gerrard Roberts his House and from thence I sent out to know how the other Meetings in the City were And I understood that at some of the Meeting-places Friends were kept out and at others they were taken but set at Liberty again a few days after A glorious time it was for the Lord's Power came over all and his Everlasting Truth got Renown For as fast as some that were speaking were taken down others were moved of the Lord to stand up and speak to the admiration of the People and the more because many Baptists and other Sectaries left their Publick Meetings and came to see how the Quakers would stand As for the Informer aforesaid he was so frighted 1670. London that there durst hardly any Informer appear publickly again in London for some time after But the Mayor whose Name was Samuel Starling though he carried himself smoothly towards us proved afterwards a very great Persecutor of our Friends many of whom he cast into Prison as may be seen in the Books of the Trials of W. Penn W. Mead and others at the Old Baily this Year After some time the Heat of Persecution in the City began to abate and Meetings were quieter there and I being then clear of the City went to visit Friends in the Country having several Meetings as I went in Middlesex Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Middlesez Buckinghamshire Oxfordshire Reading which were quiet though in some places there was much Threatning At Reading most of the Friends were in Prison and I went thither to Visit them And when I had been a while with them the Friends that were Prisoners gathered together and several other Persons came in so that I had a fine Opportunity amongst them and declared the Word of Life encouraging them in the Truth and they were Refreshed in feeling the Presence and Power of the Lord amongst them When the Meeting was ended the Jailer understanding that I was there the Friends were troubled and concerned how to get me out safe again for they feared lest he should stop me But after I had staid a while and Eaten with them I went down the Stairs and the Jailer being at the Door I put my hand in my Pocket which he had such an Eye to hoping to get something of me that he asked me no Question So I gave him something and bad him Be kind and civil to my Friends in Prison whom I came to Visit And he let me pass out without Interruption But soon after Isaac Pennington coming to Visit them he stopt him and caused him to be made a Prisoner Next Morning I rid about Fourteen Miles to a Meeting Hampshire Baghurst at a place called Baghurst in Hampshire Thomas Brigges being with me When we came into the Parish some sober People came to us and told us That the Priest of the Town was an Envious Man and did Threaten us We went on to the Meeting which was large and after some time Thomas Brigges stood up and spake Now it seems the Priest had got a Warrant and sent the Constables and other Officers with it And they came to the House and stay'd a while and then went away again but did not come into the Meeting So we in the Meeting did not know of their being there But after Thomas Brigges had done speaking I was moved of the Lord to stand up and declared the Word of Life to the People and a precious Meeting we had When I had done speaking and the Meeting was ended and risen I heard a great Clutter in the Yard and when we came forth the Man of the House told us That the Officers had been in the House before but did not come into the Meeting but went away without doing any thing And that now the Priest in a great Rage had sent them again and his own Servant with them But the Meeting being ended before they came they could do nothing now And thus the good Providence of the Lord preserved us from the Wicked Design of the Envious Priest and out of his Snare but the Priest was in a great Rage 1670. Barkshire Surrey Guilford From thence We went to a Friend's House on the Edge of Barkshire where several Friends came to visit us And afterwards we passed into Surrey visiting Friends and had many precious Meetings till we came to Stephen Smiths near Guilford where great Persecution had been and very much Goods had been taken away from Friends thereabouts for their Meetings and under great Threatnings they were at that time yet we had several blessed Meetings there and thereabouts and the Lord's Power was over all in and by which we were preserved Sussex We went out of Surrey into Sussex by Richard Baxe's where we had a large precious Meeting and quiet though the Constables had given out Threatnings before Afterwards I had many more Meetings up and down in that County and though there were some Threatnings yet Meetings were peaceable and Friends were refreshed and established upon the Foundation of God that stands sure When I had throughly visited Sussex Kent I went into Kent and had many glorious and precious Meetings in several parts of that County I went up into East-Kent to a Meeting near Deal Deal which was very large and returning from thence to Canterbury Canterbury Isle of Sheppy visited Friends there and then passed into the Isle of Sheppy where I staid Two or Three Days and thither came Alexander Parker George Whitehead and John Rouse to me The next day after they came finding my Service for the Lord finished there we passed away towards Rochester And on the way as I was walking down an Hill a great Weight and Oppression fell upon my Spirit I got on my Horse again but the Weight remained so heavy on me that I was hardly able to Ride At length we came to Rochester Rochester but I was much spent being so extreamly loaden and burdened with the World's Spirits that my Life was oppressed under them I got with difficulty to Graves-End Gravesend and lay at an Inn there but could hardly either Eat or Sleep The next day John Rouse and Alexander Parker went for London and John Stubbs being come to me he and I went over the Ferry into Essex Essex We came to a place called Horne-Church Horne-Church Stratford where was a Meeting on the First-Day And after the Meeting I rode with great Vneasiness to Stratford Three Miles from London to a Friend's House there whose Name was Williams and who had formerly been a Captain Here I lay exceeding Weak and at last lost both my Hearing and my Sight so that I could neither hear nor see Several
the Lord God that he hath a People in this Nation that seeks the Good of all Men upon the Face of the Earth For we have the Mind of the Lord Jesus Christ that desires not the Death of a Sinner but the Salvation and Good of all Blessed be the Name of the Lord our God for ever G. F. While I continued at Enfield a sense came upon me of an Hurt that sometimes hap'ned by Persons coming under the Profession of Truth out of one Country into another to take an Husband or Wife amongst Friends where they were Strangers and it was not known whether they were Clear and Orderly or no. And it Opened in me to recommend the following Method unto Friends for preventing such Inconveniences Whereupon I writ the following Lines ALL Friends that do Marry whether they be Men or Women if they come out of another Nation Island Plantation or County let them bring a Certificate from the Men's-Meeting of that County Nation Island or Plantation from which they come to the Men's Meeting where they do propound their Intention of Marriage for the Men's-Meeting being made up of the Faithful this will stop all bad and raw Spirits from Roving up and down And then when any come with a Certificate or Letter of Recommendation from one Men's-Meeting to another one is refreshed by another and can set their Hands and Hearts to the thing and this will take away a great deal of Trouble And then what ye have to say to them in the Power of God in Admonishing and Instructing them ye are left to the Power and Spirit of God to do it and to let them know the Duty of Marriage and what it is that there may be an Vnity and a Concord in the Spirit and Power and Light and Wisdom of God throughout all the Men's-Meetings in the whole World in One in the Life Let Copies of this be sent to every County and Nation and Island where Friends are that so all things may be kept holy and pure and righteous in Vnity and Peace and God over all may be glorified among you his Lot his People and Inheritance who are his Adopted Sons and Daughters and Heirs of his Life So no more but my Love in that which changeth not The 14th of the First Month 1670 1. G. F. When I had recovered so much Strength that I could Walk a little up and down I went from Enfield to Gerrard Roberts's again and from thence to the Womens School at Shacklewell and so to London Shacklewell London Grac. Meet to the Meeting at Gracious-Street where though I was yet but Weak yet the Lord's Power upheld and enabled me to Declare his Eternal Word of Life And about this time I was moved to pray to the Lord as followeth O Lord God Almighty 1670. London Prosper Truth and Preserve Justice and Equity in the Land and bring down all Injustice and Iniquity Oppression and Falshood and Cruelty and Vnmercifulness in the Land and that Mercy and Righteousness may flourish And O Lord God! Establish and set up Verity and Preserve it in the Land And bring down in the Land all Debauchery and Vice and Whoredoms and Fornication and this Raping Spirit which causeth and leadeth People to have no Esteem of Thee O God! nor their own Souls or Bodies nor of Christianity Modesty or Humanity And O Lord Put it in the Magistrates Hearts to bring down all this Vngodliness and Violence and Cruelty Prophaness Cursing and Swearing and to put down all these Whore-houses and Play-houses which do Corrupt Youth and People and lead them from the Kingdom of God where no Vnclean Thing can Enter neither shall come but such Works lead People to Hell And the Lord in Mercy bring down all these things in the Nation to stop thy Wrath O God! from coming on the Land This Prayer was writ the 17th Day at Night of the 2d Month 1671. G. F. I mentioned before that upon the Notice I received of my Wife 's being had to Prison again I sent two of her Daughters to the King and they procured his Order to the Sheriff of Lancashire for her Discharge But though I expected she would have been set at Liberty thereby 1671. London yet this Violent Storm of Persecution coming suddenly on upon it the Persecutors there did not Release her but found means to hold her still in Prison But now the Persecution a little ceasing I was moved to speak to Martha Fisher and another Woman-Friend to go to the King about her Liberty They went in the Faith and in the Lord's Power and the Lord gave them Favour with the King so that he granted a Discharge under the Broad-Seal to Clear both her and her Estate after she had been Ten Years a Prisoner and Premunired The like whereof was scarce to be heard in England I sent down the Discharge forthwith by a Friend by whom also I writ to her both to Inform her how to get it delivered to the Justices and also to Acquaint her that it was upon me from the Lord to go beyond the Seas to visit the Plantations in America and therefore desired her to hasten up to London as soon as she could conveniently after she had obtained her Liberty because the Ship was then fitting for the Voyage In the mean time I got down to Kingston Kingston and staid at John Rous his House till my Wife came up and then I began to prepare for the Voyage But the Yearly Meeting being near at hand London-Yea Meet I tarried till that was over A very large Meeting it was for many Friends came up to it from all parts of the Nation and a very precious Meeting it was for the Lord's Power was over all and his glorious everlastingly-renowned Seed of Life was exalted above all Now after this Meeting was over and I had finished my Services for the Lord here in England the Ship also and the Friends that intended to go with me being ready I went down to Graves-end on the 12th day of the Sixth Month my Wife and several Friends accompanying me to the Downs We went from Wapping in a Barge to the Ship Wapping which lay a little below Graves-end and there we found the Friends Gravesend that were bound for the Voyage with me who went down to the Ship the Night before Their Names were Thomas Brigges William Edmundson John Rouse John Stubbs Solomon Eccles James Lancaster John Cartwright Robert Widders George Pattison John Hull Elizabeth Hooton and Eliz. Miers The Vessel we were to go in was a Yatch and it was called The Industry the Master's Name was Thomas Forster and the number of Passengers about Fifty I lay that Night on Board but most of the Friends lay at Graves end Early next morning the Passengers and those Friends that intended to accompany us to the Downs being come on Board we took our Leave in great Tenderness of those Friends that came with
got a little Cheary and over it Many Friends and some considerable Persons of the World have been with me I tired out my Body much when amongst you in England it is the Lord's Power that helps me Therefore I desire you all to prize the Power of the Lord and his Truth I was but a Weak Man in Body when I came away from you after I had been in my great Travel amongst you but after that it struck all back again into my Body which was not well settled after so sore Travels in England And then was I so tired at Sea that I could not rest and have had little or no Stomach a long time Since I came into this Island my Life hath been very much burdened But I hope if the Lord give me Strength to manage his Work I shall work throughly and bring things that have been out of Course into better Order So Dear Friends live all in the peaceable Truth and in the Love of it serving the Lord in Newness of Life For glorious Things and precious Truths have been manifested among you plentifully and to you the Riches of the Kingdom have been reached I have been almost a Month in this Island but have not been able to go abroad or ride out only very lately I rid out twice a Quarter of a Mile at a time which wearied me much and almost tired me My Love in the Truth is to you all G. F. Now because I was not yet well able to Travel the Friends of the Island concluded to have their Men's-Meeting and their Womens-Meeting for the Service of the Church at Thomas Rous's where I lay by which means I was present amongst them at each of their Meetings and had very good Service for the Lord in both For they had need of Information in many things and divers Disorders were crept in for want of Care and Watchfulness Wherefore I exhorted them more especially at the Mens-Meeting to be watchful and careful with respect to Marriages to prevent Friends Marrying in near Kindreds and also to prevent over-hasty proceedings toward Second Marriages after the Death of a former Husband or Wife advising that a decent Regard were had in such Cases to the Memory of the Deceased Husband or Wife And as to Friends Children marrying too young as at Thirteen or Fourteen Years of Age I shewed them the Unfitness thereof and the Inconveniences and Hurts that attend such Childish Marriages And I admonished them all to purge the Floor throughly and to sweep their Houses very clean that nothing might remain that would defile And that all should take care that nothing be spoken out of their Meetings to the blemishing or defaming one of another Likewise concerning Registring of Marriages Births and Burials I advised them to keep Exact Records of each in distinct Books for that only use and also to Record in a Book for that purpose the Condemnations of such as went out from Truth into Disorderly Practices and the Repentance and Restoration of such of them as returned again Also I recommended to their Care the providing of convenient Burying Places for Friends which in some parts were yet wanting Some Directions also I gave them concerning Wills and the Ordering of Legacies left by Friends for publick Vses and other things relating to the Affairs of the Church Then as to their Blacks or Negro's I desired them to endeavour to train them up in the Fear of God as well them that were bought with their Money as them that were born in their Families that all might come to the Knowledge of the Lord that so with Joshua they might every Master of a Family say As for me and my House we will serve the Lord. I desired them also that they would cause their Overseers to deal mildly and gently with their Negro's and not use Cruelty towards them as the manner of some hath been and is And that after certain Years of Servitude they would make them free Many sweet and precious things were opened in these Meetings by the Spirit and in the Power of the Lord to the edifying confirming and building up of Friends both in the Faith and holy Order of the Gospel After these Meetings were over the Vessel that was bound for England not being yet gone I was moved to write another Epistle to Friends there the Copy whereof here follows DEar Friends and Brethren to whom is my Love in that which never changeth but remains in Glory which is over all the Top and Corner-stone In this all have Peace and Life as ye dwell in the blessed Seed wherein all is blest over that which brought the Curse where all Shortness and Narrowness of Spirit is and Brittleness and Peevishness is Therefore keep the Holy Order of the Gospel and keep in this blessed Seed where all may be kept in Temperance in Patience in Love in Meekness in Righteousness and Holiness and in Peace in which the Lord may be seen amongst you and no ways dishonoured but glorified by you all And so in all your Meetings in Cities Towns and Countries Mens-Meetings Womens-Meetings and others let Righteousness slow among you and the Holy Truth be uppermost and the pure Spirit your Guide and Leader and the holy Wisdom your Orderer that is pure and gentle and from above and easie to be entreated So keep in the Religion that keeps from the Spots of the World which is pure and undefiled in God's Sight And keep in the pure and holy Worship in which the pure and holy God is worshipped to wit in the Spirit and in the Truth which the Devil is out of who is the Author of all Vnholiness and of dishonouring of God So be all tender of God's Glory and tender of his Honour and of his blessed and holy Name in which ye are gathered And all who do profess the Truth see that ye Walk in it and in Righteousness and Godliness and Holiness For Holiness becomes the House of God the Houshold of Faith And that which becomes God's House God loves for he loves Righteousness and that is the Ornament which becomes his House and all his Family Therefore see that Righteousness do run down in all your Assemblies and that it flow to drive away all the Vnrighteousness This preserves your Peace with God for in Righteousness ye have all Peace with the righteous God of Peace and one with another And so every one that bears the Name of the Anointed that high Title of being a Christian named after the Heavenly Man see that ye be in the Divine Nature and made conformable unto his Image even the Image of the Heavenly Divine Man who was before that Image which Adam and Eve got in the Fall from the Devil So that in none of you that fallen Image may appear or be seen but his Image and you made Conformable unto him Here Translation is shewed forth in Life and Conversation not in Words only yea and Conversion and Repentance which
Powerful Presence being eminently with us and amongst us After the Meeting was done and Friends most of them gone away as I was sitting in the Parlour discoursing with some Friends that staid there came to the House one Henry Parker called a Justice and with him one Rowland Hains a Priest of Hunniton in Warwickshire This Justice came to know of the Meeting by means of a Woman-Friend who being Nurse to a Child of his asked Leave of her Mistress to go to the Meeting to see me and she speaking of it to her Husband he and the Priest plotted together to come and break up the Meeting and apprehend me But by means of their sitting long at Dinner it being the Day on which his Child was sprinkled they came not till the Meeting was over and Friends mostly gone But though there was no Meeting when they came yet I being there in the House who was the Person they aimed at the said Henry Parker took me and Thomas Lower for Company with me and though he had nothing to lay to our Charge sent us both to Worcester-Jail by a strange sort of Mittimus a Copy of which here followeth Worcester ss To the Constables of Tredington in the said County of Worcester and to all Constables and Tithing-men of the several Townships and Villages within the said Parish of Tredington and to the Keeper of the Goal for the County of Worcester COmplaint being made to me being one of his Majesty's Justices of the Peace for the said County of Worcester that within the said Parish of Tredington in the said County there has of late been several Meetings of divers Persons to the number of Four hundred Persons and upwards at a time upon Pretence of Exercise of Religion otherwise than what is established by the Laws of England And many of the said Persons some of them were Teachers and came from the North and others from the remote parts of the Kingdom which tends to the Prejudice of the Reformed and Established Religion and may prove prejudicial to the Publick Peace And it appearing to me that there was this present Day such a Meeting as aforesaid to the number of Two hundred or thereabouts at Armscot in the said Parish of Tredington 1670. Armscot and that George Fox of London and Thomas Lower of the Parish of Creed in the County of Cornwal were present at the said Meeting and the said George Fox was Teacher or Speaker of the said Meeting and no satisfactory Account of their Settlement or place of Habitation appearing to me and forasmuch as the said George Fox and Thomas Lower refused to give Sureties to Appear at the next Sessions of the Peace to be holden for the said County to answer the Breach of the Common-Laws of England and what other Matters should be Objected against them These are therefore in his Majesty's Name to will and require you or either of you forthwith to Convey the Bodies of the said George Fox and Thomas Lower to the County-Goal of Worcester aforesaid and there safely to be kept until they shall be from thence delivered by due Course of Law For which this shall be your sufficient Warrant in that behalf Dated the 17th Day of December in the 25th Year of his Majesty's Reign over England c. HENRY PARKER Being thus made Prisoners without any probable Appearance of being Released before the Quarter-Sessions at Soonest we got some Friends to accompany my Wife and her Daughter into the North and we were conveyed to Worcester-Jail from whence Worcester-Jail by that time I thought my Wife could be got home I writ her the following Letter Dear Heart THou seemedst to be a little grieved when I was speaking of Prisons and when I was taken Be content with the Will of the Lord God For when I was at John Rous's at Kingston I had a sight of my being taken Prisoner and when I was at Bray Doily's in Oxfordshire as I sate at Supper I saw I was taken and I saw I had a Suffering to undergo But the Lord's Power is over all blessed be his Holy Name for ever G. F. When we had beeen some time in the Jail we thought fit to lay our Case before him who was called the Lord Windsore who was the Lord Lieutenant of Worcestershire and before the Deputy Lieutenants and other Magistrates Which we did by the following Letter THese are to inform you the Lord Lieutenant so called and the Deputy-Lieutenants and the Justices of the County of Worcestershire how Unchristianly and Inhumanly we have been dealt withal by Henry Parker a Justice so called in our Journey or Travel towards the North. We coming to our Friend John Halford's House on the Seventeenth Day of the Tenth Month 1673. and some Friends bringing us on the Way and others coming to Visit us there towards Night there came the aforesaid Justice and a Priest called Rowland Hains of Hunniton in Warwickshire and demanded our Names and Places of Abode And though we were not in any Meeting 1673. Worcester Jail but were discoursing together when they came in yet he made a Mittimus to send us to Worcester-Jail Now whereas he says in his Mittimus That Complaint had been made to him of several by-past Meetings of many Hundreds at a time we know nothing of that nor do we think that concerns us And whereas he says further That no satisfactory Account of our Settlement or place of Habitation appeared unto him This he contradicts in his own Mittimus mentioning therein the Places of our Abode and Habitation the Account of which we satisfactorily and fully gave him And one of us Tho. Lower told him That I was going down with my Mother-in-Law who is George Fox his Wife and with my Sister to fetch up my own Wife and Child out of the North into my own Country And the other of us George Fox told him That I was bringing forward my Wife on her Journey towards the North who had been at London to visit one of her Daughters that had lately Lain in And having received a Message from my Mother an ancient Woman in Leicestershire that she earnestly desired to see me before she died I intended as soon as I had brought my Wife on her Journey as far as Causal in Warwickshire to turn over into Leicestershire to have seen my Mother and Relations there and then to have returned to London again But by his interrupting of us in our Journey and taking the Husband from his Wife and the Son from his Mother and Sister and stopping him from visiting his Wife and Child so remote off we were forced to get Strangers or whom we could to help them on their Journey to our great Dammage and their Hindrance We askt the Priest Whether this was his Gospel and their Way of Entertaining Strangers And we desired the Justice to consider Whether this was doing as he would be done by But he said He had said it
Gospel-Order and it belongs to them Then take your Possessions and Practise in it and be not Talkers only but Live and Walk in the Gospel the Power of God which is the Authority of your Meetings Swarthmore the 28th of the Third Month 1676. G. F. Read at the Yearly Meeting in London the 17th of the Third Month 1676. During this time also I Collected together as many as I could of the Epistles I had written in former Years to Friends I made a Collection too of the several Papers that I had written to O. Cromwel and his Son Richard in the time of their Protectorships and to the Parliaments and Magistrates that were in their times And after I had gathered them together I Collected also the Papers I had written to King Charles the Second since his Return and to his Council and Parliaments and the Justices or other Magistrates under him I made also another Collection of Certificates which I had received from divers Governours of Places Judges Justices Parliament-Men and others for the Clearing of me from many Slanders which the Envious Priests and Professors both here and beyond the Seas had cast upon me And this I did for the Truth's-sake as knowing that their Design in Slandering me was to defame the Truth published by me and hinder thereby if they could the Spreading thereof amongst the People Besides these I made Two Books of Collections the one was A List or Catalogue of the Names of those Friends who went first forth out of the North of England when Truth first brake forth there to proclaim the Day of the Lord through this Nation The other was of the Names of those Friends that went first forth to Preach the Gospel in other Nations Countries and Places and in what Years and to what Parts they went I made also another Collection in Two Books one of Epistles and Letters from Friends and others on several Occasions to me The other of Letters of mine to Friends and others I writ also a Book of the Types and Figures of Christ with their Significations and many other things which will be of Service to Truth and Friends in times to come I took notice also of those who had run out from Truth and drawn others out after them and turned against Truth and Friends at several times since the First Breaking forth of Truth in this latter Age and what became of them noting particularly the Repentance and Return of such of them as came back to Truth again But some ran quite out and never returned again but were Cut off in their Gainsaying and Rebellion for the Word and Power of God hath blasted and is blasting them and the Holy Seed hath ground and is grinding them to pieces And this I have observed that they who have been Convinced and have not lived and walked in the Truth have been the Worst Enemies to the Truth and done most Hurt amongst Friends in the Truth and to others And in these I have seen fulfilled what the Lord did long since shew me That such should be greater Deceivers than all the Priests and Professors For such as came as far as Cain and Balaam and Corah and Dathan and could preach Christ and say They had preached in his Name and such as came to be Apostles and had tasted of the Power of Christ and then turned from it such could yet speak their Old Experiences and have the good Words like Corah and Balaam but not keeping in the Life and Truth such Deceived the Hearts of the Simple both then and now and such come to be of the Devil who abode not in the Truth as Cain and and all the Jews that abode not in the Truth were For though Cain did Sacrifice to God and did talk with God and the Jews could talk of Abraham Moses and the Prophets yet Christ told them They were of their Father the Devil In like manner though they who are called Christians can talk of Christ and use his and his Apostles and Disciples Words yet not abiding in the Truth and Power and Spirit that the Apostles were in they are of the Devil out of Truth and do his Work And so are all these that have been Convinced of God's Eternal Truth since it sprang up in this Nation that have not abode in the Light and in the Spirit and Power of Christ Jesus but have turned against the Power and have opposed the Work thereof though they may retain their former Experiences and be able to speak many good Words yet not living in the Life and Power that gave them those Experiences they live in the Power of Darkness which is of the Devil and by the Light and Truth both he and they are Condemned and must own their Condemnations if ever they come to Truth again For to Resist the Heavenly Power and to oppose the Workings and Divine Manifestations thereof through any is not a light Matter And as I had been moved of the Lord to travel in his Power round about this Nation and in other Parts to preach the Everlasting Gospel and to declare the Word of Life which was in the Beginning through many Imprisonments Hardships Sufferings and Trials so I was afterwards moved to Travel in the same Heavenly Power about the Nation again and to write to such Places where I came not to recommend unto Friends the setting up of the Quarterly and Monthly Meetings in all Counties for the looking after the Poor and taking Care for Orderly Proceedings in Marriages and other matters relating to the Church of Christ Though some Meetings for this end were settled in the North of England in the Year 1653. And after this also Truth still spreading further over the Nation and Friends encreasing in number I was moved by the same Eternal Power to recommend the setting up the Womens-Meetings also that all both Male and Female that had received the Gospel the Word of Eternal Life might come into the Order of the Gospel brought forth by the Power of God and might act for God in the Power and therein do Business and Service for him in his Church All the Faithful must labour in God's Vineyard they being his Hired Servants and he having given them the Earnest of his Spirit For a Master that hires a Servant and gives him the Earnest of his Hire expects he should do his Work after he knows his Will in the outward Creation So all God's Prople that be of the new Creation and have received the Earnest of his Spirit ought to labour with by and in his Spirit Power and Grace and Faith in the Light in God's Vineyard that they may have their Wages every one Male and Female when they have done God's Work and Business in his Day which is Eternal Life But none can labour in his Vineyard and do his Work and Will but as they walk in the Heavenly Divine Light Grace and Spirit of Christ which is hath been and is my Travel and
at Finchcomb where were several of the Opposit Spirit who it was thought Intended to have made some disturbance amongst Friends but the Lord's Power was over and kept them down and good Service for the Lord we had at that Meeting We returned from Finchcomb to Nailsworth again Nailsworth and had another very precious Meeting there to which Friends came from the several Meetings thereabouts which made it very large also We went from Nailsworth on the First day of the First Month 1677 8 and travelled through the Country visiting Friends and having many Meetings amongst them at Cirencester Crown-Allins Cirencester Crown-Allins Cheltonham Stoke-Orchard Tewksbury c. Worcester Parshow Evesham Warwickshire Ragley Cheltonham Stoke-Orchard Tewksbury c. so went to Worcester where I had formerly suffered Imprisonment above a Year for the Truth 's sake and Friends rejoiced greatly to see me there again Here I stay'd several days and had many very precious Meetings in the City and much Service amongst Friends After which travelling through the Country I had Meetings at Parshow and Evesham and then struck to Ragley in Warwickshire to visit her that was called the Lady Conway who I understood was very desirous to see me and whom I found tender and loving and willing to have detained me longer than I had freedom to stay About Two miles from hence I had Two Meetings at a Friend's house whose name was John Stangley Stratford Lamcoat Armscott Oxfordshire Sibbard North-Newton Banbury Adderbury c. Buckinghamshire Long-Crendon Ilmer Mendle Weston Cholsberry Chesham c. Hartfordshire Charlewood Watford Hempsted Market-street Bedfordshire Luton Albans South-Mims Barnet Hendon London whither William Dewsbury came to me and stay'd with me about half a day Afterwards I visited Friends in their Meetings thereabouts at Stratford Lamcoat and Armscott from whence it was that I was sent Prisoner to Worcester in the Year 1673 and thence passed into Oxfordshire visiting Friends and having Meetings at Sibbard North-Newton Banbury Adderbury c. Then visiting Friends through Buckinghamshire at Long-Crendon Ilmer Mendle Weston Cholsberry Chesham c. having several Meetings amongst them I came to Isaac Pennington's where I stay'd a few days And then turning into Hartfordshire visited Friends at Charlewood Watford Hempstead and Market-street at which places I had Meetings with Friends From Market-street I went in the Morning to Luton in Bedfordshire to see John Crook with whom I spent good part of the day and went towards Evening to Albans where I lay that night at an Inn. And visiting Friends at South-Mims and at Barnet and Hendon where I had Meetings I came to London on the Eighth day of the Third Month. And it being the Fourth-day of the Week I went to Gracious-street-Meeting which was peaceable and well and many Friends not knowing I was come to Town were very Joyful to see me there and the Lord was present with us refreshing us with his living Vertue blessed be his holy Name The Parliament was sitting when I came to Town and Friends having laid their Sufferings before them were Waiting on them for Relief against the Laws made against Popish Recusants which they knew we were not though some malicious Magistrates took Advantages against us 1678. London to prosecute us in several parts of the Nation upon those Statutes So Friends being Attending on that Service when I came I Joined with them therein and some probability there was that something might have been obtained towards Friends Ease and Relief in that Case many of the Parliament-men being tender and loving towards us as believing we were much mis-represented by our Adversaries But when I went down one Morning with George Whitehead to the Parliament-house to Attend upon them on Friends hehalf on a sudden they were Prorogued though but for a short time Yearly Meeting About two weeks after I came to London the Yearly Meeting began to which Friends came up out of most parts of the Nation and a glorious heavenly Meeting we had Oh the Glory Majesty Love Life Wisdom and Vnity that was amongst us the Power reigned over all and many Testimonies were born therein against that ungodly Spirit which sought to make Rents and Divisions amongst the Lord's People but not one Mouth was opened amongst us in its defence or on its behalf Good and Comfortable Accounts also we had for the most part from Friends in other Countries of which I find a brief Account in a Letter which soon after I writ to my Wife the Copy whereof here follows Dear Heart TO whom is my Love in the Everlasting Seed of Life that reigns over all Great Meetings here have been and the Lord's Power hath been stirring through all the like hath not been And the Lord hath in his Power knit Friends wonderfully together and the glorious Presence of the Lord did appear among Friends And now the Meetings are over blessed be the Lord in quietness and peace From Holland I hear that things are well there Some Friends are gone that way to be at their Yearly Meeting at Amsterdam At Embden Friends that were banished are gotten into the City again At Dantzick Friends are in Prison and the Magistrates threatned them with harder Imprisonment but the next day the Lutherans rose and plucked down or defaced the Popish Monastery so they have work enough among themselves The King of Poland did receive my Letter and read it himself and Friends have since printed it in High-Dutch By Letters from the Half-yearly-Meeting in Ireland I hear that they be all in Love there And at Barbados Friends are in quietness and their Meetings settled in peace At Antego also and Nevis Truth prospers and Friends have their Meetings orderly and well Likewise in New-England and other places things concerning Truth and Friends are well and in those places the Mens and Womens-Meetings are settled blessed be the Lord. So keep in God's Power and Seed that is over all in whom ye all have Life and Salvation for the Lord reigns over all in his Glory and in his Kingdom Glory to his Name for ever Amen So in haste with my Love to you all and to all Friends London the 26th of the 3d Month 1678. G. F. The Letter to the King of Poland before mentioned is as followeth To Johannes III. KING of Poland c. O King WE desire thy Prosperity both in this Life and that which is to come And we desire that we may have our Christian Liberty to Serve and Worship God under thy Dominion For our Principle leads us not to do any thing prejudicial to the King or his People For we are a People that do exercise a good Conscience towards God through his holy Spirit and in it do serve and worship and honour him and towards Men in the things that be equal and just doing to them as we would have them do unto us and looking unto Jesus who is the Author and Finisher of our Faith which Faith
that and that Liberty answers the Grace the Truth the Light the Spirit the Faith the Gospel of Christ in every Man and Woman and is the Yoke to the Contrary in every Man and Woman And that makes it rage and swell and puff up for that is restless and unruly and out of patience and is ready to curse his God and that which reigns over him because it hath not its Will And it works with all Subtilty and Evasion with its restless Spirit to get in and defile the minds of the Simple and to make Rapes upon the Virgin Minds But as they receive the heavenly Wisdom by which all things were made which Wisdom is above that Spirit through this Wisdom they will be preserved over that Spirit And Christ hath given Judgment to his Saints in his Church though he be Judge of all and the Saints in the Power and Spirit of God had and have Power to Judge of Words and Manners of Lives and Conversations and Growths and States from a Child to a Father in the Truth and to whom they are a Savour of Death and to whom they are a Savour of Life And who serve the Lord Jesus Christ and preach him and who preach themselves and serve themselves And who Talk of the Light and of Faith and of the Gospel and of Hope and of Grace and preach such things and in their Works and Lives deny them all and God and Christ and preach up Liberty from that in themselves to that in Others which should be under the Yoke and Cross of Christ the Power of God And so the Saints in the Power and Spirit of Christ can discern and distinguish who serves God and Christ and who serves him not and so can put a distinction between the Prophane and the Holy But such as have lost their Eye-salve and their Sight is grown dim lose this Judgment Discerning and Distinction in the Church of Christ and such come to be spewed out of Christ's mouth except they Repent and if not they come to Corrupt the Earth and burden it that it Vomits them out of it And therefore all are Exhorted to keep in the Power and Spirit of Christ Jesus and in the Word of Life and the Wisdom of God which is above that that is below in which they may keep their heavenly Understandings and heavenly Discernings and so set the heavenly Spiritual Judgment over that which is for Judgment which dishonours God which leads into loose and false Liberty out of the Unity which stands in the heavenly Spirit which brings into Conformity and to be Conformable to the Image of the Son of God and his Gospel the Power of God which was before the Devil was and his Truth which the Devil is out of in which all are of one Mind Heart and Soul and come to drink into one Spirit being baptized into one Spirit and so into one Body which Christ is the Head of and so keep one Fellowship in the Spirit and Unity in the Spirit which is the Bond of Peace the Prince of Princes Peace And they that Cry so much against Judging and are afraid of Judgment whether they be Apostates Professors or Prophane they are the Most-judging with their censorious false Spirits and Judgment and yet cannot bear the true Judgment of the Spirit of God nor stand in his Judgment This hath been manifest from the beginning they having the false Measures and the false Weights for none have the true Measure and the true Weight but who keep in the Light Power and Spirit of Christ And now there is a loose Spirit that cries for Liberty and against Prescriptions and yet is prescribing ways both by Words and Writings And the same Spirit cries against Judging and would not be Judged and yet is Judging with a wrong Spirit And this is given forth in Reproof to that Spirit London the 9th of the 4th Month 1678. G. F. When I had finished what Service I had for the Lord at this time here I left London and went towards Hartford visiting Friends and having several Meetings in the way At Hartford I stay'd several days having much Service for the Lord there both amongst Friends in their Meetings and in Conferences with such as having let in evil surmisings and jealousies concerning Friends stood in Opposition to the Order of Truth And in Answering some Books that had been written against Truth and Friends And while I was here it came upon me to write a few Lines and send them abroad amongst Friends as followeth Dear Friends LET the holy Seed of Life reign over Death and the unholy Seed in you all that in the holy Seed of the Kingdom ye may all feel the everlasting holy Peace with God through Christ Jesus your Saviour and sit down in him your Life and glorious Rest the holy Rock and Foundation that standeth sure over all from Everlasting to Everlasting in whom all the fulness of Blessedness is so that ye may glory in him that liveth for evermore Amen! Who is your Eternal Joy Life and Happiness through whom you have Peace with God 1678. Hartford Which holy Seed bruiseth the Head of the Serpent and will out-live all his Wrath and Rage Malice and Envy who was before He and It was and remains when He and It is gone into the fire that burns with brimstone The Seed Christ will reign and so will ye as ye do live and walk in him and sit down in Christ and build up one another in the Love of God Hartford the 10 of the 5th Month 1678. G. F. Next day a fresh Exercise came upon me with respect to those unruly and disorderly Spirits which were gone out from us and were labouring to draw others after them into a false Liberty And in the sense I had of the hurt and mischief these might do where they were given way to I was moved to write a few Lines to Warn Friends of them as followeth All Friends KEep in the tender Life of the Lamb over that unruly puffed up and swelling Spirit whose work is for Strife Contention and Division drawing into Loosness and false Liberty under a pretence of Conscience and dangerous to the Spoiling of Youth They that do encourage them will be guilty of their Destruction and set up a sturdy Will instead of Conscience in their Rage and Passion which will quench the universal Spirit in themselves and in every Man and Woman and so that Spirit shall not have the Liberty in themselves nor in Others and so shut up the Kingdom of Heaven in themselves and also in Others And so a loose Spirit getting up under a pretence of Liberty of Conscience or a stubborn Will making a Profession of the Words of Truth in a Form without Power all Loosness and Vileness will be sheltered and covered under this pretence which is for Eternal Judgment for that doth dishonour God Therefore keep to the tender Spirit of God in all humility that
I had not been long at Swarthmore e're a Concern came upon me to visit the Churches of Christ in London and elsewhere by an Epistle which was as followeth Dear Friends TO whom is my Love in the heavenly Seed in whom all Nations are blessed Oh keep all in this Seed in which ye are blessed and in which Abraham and all the Faithful were blessed without the Deeds of the Law for the Promise was and is to and with the Seed and not with the Law of the First Covenant In this Seed all Nations and ye are blessed which bruiseth the Head of the Seed that brought the Curse and separated between Man and God This is the Seed which reconciles you to God and this is the Seed in which ye are blessed both in Temporals and Spirituals through which ye have an Inheritance among the Sanctified that cannot be defiled neither can any defiled thing enter into its Possession for all defilements are out of this Seed This is that which leavens up into a New Lump and bruiseth the Head of the Wicked Seed that leavens into the Old Lump upon whom the Sun of Righteousness goes down and sets but never goes down and sets to them that walk in the Seed in which all Nations are blessed by which Seed they are brought up to God which puts down that Seed which separated betwixt them and God so that there comes to be nothing betwixt them and God Now all my Dear Friends my desires are that ye may all be Valiant in this heavenly Seed for God and his Truth upon the Earth and spread it abroad answering that of God in all that with it the Minds of People may be turned towards the Lord that he may come to be known and served and worshipped and that ye may all be the Salt of the Earth to make the unseasoned savoury And in the Name of Jesus keep your Meetings who are gathered into it in whose Name ye have Salvation he being in the midst of you whose Name is above every Name under the whole Heaven And so ye have a Prophet and Bishop Shepherd Priest and Counsellor above all the Counsellors and Priests Bishops Prophets and Shepherds under the whole Heaven to exercise his Offices among you in your Meetings that are gathered in his Name For Christ's Meeting and Gathering is above all the Meetings and Gatherings under the whole Heaven And his Body his Church and he the Head of it is above all the Bodies and Churches and Heads under the whole Heaven And the Faith that Christ is the Author of and the Worship that he hath set up and his Fellowship in the Gospel is above all Historical Faiths and the Faith 's that Man hath made together with their Worships and Fellowships under the whole Heaven And now Dear Friends keep your Men and Womens-Meetings in the Power of God the Gospel the Authority of them which brings Life and Immortality to Light in you and this Gospel the Power of God will preserve you in Life and in Immortality which hath brought it to Light in you that ye may see over him that hath darkned and kept from the knowledge of the things of God for it is he and his Instruments which hath darkned you from Life and Immortality that would throw down your Men and Womens-Meetings which were set up in the Power of God the Gospel and would darken you again from this Life and Immortality which the Gospel hath brought to Light and will preserve you in as your Faith stands in this Power of God the Gospel in which every one sees your Work and Service for God And every Heir in the Power of God the Gospel hath right to this Authority which is not of Man nor by Man which Gospel the Power of God is everlasting an everlasting Order an everlasting Fellowship and in the Gospel is everlasting Joy Comfort and Peace which will out-last all those Joys Comforts and Peaces that will have an end and that Spirit also that opposes its Order and the glorious Fellowship Peace and Comfort in it And My Dear Friends my desire is that ye may keep in the Unity of the Spirit that baptizes you all into one Body which Christ is the heavenly and spiritual Head of so that ye may see and bear witness to your heavenly and spiritual Head and so all drink into the One Spirit Which all People upon the Earth are not like to do while they grieve quench and rebel against it nor to be baptized into one Body and to keep the Unity of the Spirit which is the Bond of Peace yea the King of Kings and Lord of Lords his Peace which it is the duty of all true Christians to keep who are inwardly united to Christ So with my Love to you all in the everlasting Seed Swarthmore the 26th of the 7th Month 1678. G. F. There were about this time several Friends in Prison for bearing Testimony to the Truth To whom I was moved to write a few Lines to comfort strengthen and encourage them in their Sufferings having a true sense of their Sufferings upon my spirit and a sympathizing with them therein And that which I writ was after this manner My Dear Friends WHO are Sufferers for the Lord Jesus sake and for the Testimony of his Truth the Lord God Almighty with his Power uphold you and support you in all your Trials and Sufferings and give you Patience and Content in his Will that yâ— may stand valiant for Christ and his Truth upon the Earth over the persecuting and destroying Spirit which makes to suffer in Christ who bruises his Head in whom ye have both Election and Salvation And for God's Elect sake the Lord hath done much from the Foundation of the World as may be seen throughout the Scriptures of Truth and they that touch them touch the Apple of God's Eye they are so tender to him And therefore it is good for all God's suffering Children to trust in the Lord and to wait upon him for they shall be as Mount Sion that cannot be removed from Christ their Rock and Salvation who is the Foundation of all the Elect of God of the Prophets and the Apostles and of God's People now and to the End Glory to the Lord and the Lamb over all Remember my dear Love to all Friends and do not think the time long for all Time is in the Father's hand his Power And therefore keep the Word of Patience and exercise that Gift and the Lord strengthen you in your Sufferings in his holy Spirit of Faith Amen Swarthmore the 5th of the 12th Month 1678. G. F. I abode in the North at this time above a year having Service for the Lord amongst Friends there and being much taken up in writing Books and Papers some in Defence of Truth in Answer to Books published by Adversaries and some for the opening the Principles and Doctrines of Truth to the World that they might come to have a
right understanding thereof and be gathered thereunto Several Epistles also to Friends I writ in this time on divers Occasions and Subjects whereof one was to the Friends of the Yearly Meeting which was held in London this year 1679. a Copy of which here follows My Dear Friends and Brethren WHO are Assembled together in the Name and Power of the Lord Jesus Christ Grace Mercy and Peace from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ fill all your hearts and establish you in his Grace Mercy and Peace upon Christ the holy living Rock and Foundation who is the First and Last and over all the Foundations and Rocks in the whole world a Rock and Foundation of Life for all the Living to build upon which stands sure in his heavenly divine Light which is the Life in him by whom all things were made who is the precious Stone laid in Sion and not in the World which all the Wise Master-Builders rejected who pretended to build People up to Heaven with the Words of the Prophets and the Law from Mount Sinai but out of the Life of both and therefore such Builders could not receive the Law of Life from Christ the precious Stone laid in Sion nor the Word from heavenly Jerusalem But you My Dear Friends that have received this Law from heavenly Sion and the Word from heavenly Jerusalem in the New Covenant where the Life and Substance is enjoyed you do see the end and abolishing of the Jews Law and Ceremonies from Mount Sinai And therefore my desire is that you all may keep in the Law of Life and Love 1679. Swarthmore which ye have in Christ Jesus by which Love the Body is edified and knit and united together to Christ Jesus the Head Which Love doth bear all things and fulfils the Law and will preserve all in Humility and in it to be of one mind heart and soul so that all may come to drink into that One Spirit that doth Baptize them and Circumcise them Plunging down and Cutting off the Body of the Sins of the Flesh that is gotten up in Man and Woman by their transgressing of God's Commands So that in this holy pure Spirit all may serve and worship the pure God in Spirit and in Truth which is over all the Worships that are out of God's Spirit and his Truth And in this Spirit ye will all have a Spiritual Unity and Fellowship over all the Fellowships of the Unclean Spirits which be out of Truth in the World And so by this holy Spirit all your hearts minds and souls may be knit together to Christ from whence it comes and by the Grace and Truth which is come by Jesus Christ which all should be under the Teachings of in the New Covenant and not under the Law as the outward Jews were in the Old Covenant So that by this Grace and Truth in the New Covenant all may be made God's free Men and Women to serve God in the new Life and in the new and living Way shewing forth the Fruits of the new heart and new spirit in the New Covenant over death and darkness and before it was Glory be unto the Lord for ever And now Friends in this Grace and Truth is your heavenly gracious and true Liberty to every Spiritual Mind that makes you free from him that is out of Truth where your bondage was Also your Liberty in the holy divine and precious Faith which gives you Victory over that that hath separated you from God and Christ and through which Faith ye have Access to God again through Jesus Christ So in this divine and holy Faith ye have divine holy and precious Liberty yea and Victory over him that separated you from God and this Faith is held in a pure Conscience So the Liberty in the Spirit of God is in that which baptizes and plunges down Sin and Iniquity and puts off the Body of Death and Sins of the Flesh that is gotten up by transgressing of God's Command as I said before And also the Liberty of the Gospel which is sent from Heaven by the Holy Ghost which is the Power of God which was and is again to be preached to all Nations In this Gospel the Power of God which is over the Power of Satan is the true Liberty and the Gospel-Fellowship and Order So that the Evil Spirit or Conscience or false dead Faith and that which is ungracious and out of Truth and not in the Spirit of God nor in his Gospel nor in the divine Faith its Liberty is in the Darkness For all the true Liberty is in the Gospel and in the Truth that makes free and in the Faith and in the Grace and in Christ Jesus who destroys the Devil and his Works that hath brought all Mankind into Bondage So in this heavenly peaceable Spirit and Truth and Faith which works by Love and in the Gospel of Peace and in Christ Jesus is all the Saints Peace and pure true and holy Liberty in which they have Salt and Sense and Feeling Discerning and Savour yea and Unity and Fellowship one with another yea and with the Son and the Father that heavenly eternal Fellowship So all being subject to the Grace and Truth and to the Faith and Gospel the Power of God and to his good Spirit in this they distinguish all true pure and holy Liberty from that which is false And this will bring all to sit low for Patience runs the Race and the Lamb must have the Victory and not the rough unruly and vain Talkers unbaptized uncircumcised and unsanctified For such travel not in the way of Regeneration but in the way of unregeneration Neither go they down into the Death with Christ by Baptism and therefore such are not like to Reign with him in his Resurrection who are not buried with him in Baptism Therefore all must go downward into the Death of Christ and be crucified with him if they will Arise and follow him in the Regeneration before they come to Reign with him And Friends Many may have precious Openings but I desire all may be comprehended in that thing which doth open to them And that they may all keep in the daily Cross then they keep in the Power that doth kill and crucifie that which would lead them amongst the Beasts and Goats to leaven them into their rough unruly spirit But that through the Cross the Power of God That may be crucified and they in the Power might follow the Lamb. For the Power of God keeps all in Order and in Subjection and in Humility in that which is lovely and vertuous decent comely temperate and moderate that their Moderation comes to appear to all men So my desire is that all your Lights may shine as from a City set upon a Hill that cannot be hid And that ye may be the Salt of the Earth to salt and season it and make it savoury to God and you all seasoned with it Then
that none should abuse the Power of the Lord God but in all things their Faith was to stand in the power of the Lord God so that they all might be comprehended into the Truth which they did speak to others that they might not be Preachers to others and themselves Cast-aways Therefore it doth concern you to be comprehended into that which ye do preach to Others and to keep low in it And then the God of Truth will exalt the humble in his Truth Light Grace Power and Spirit and in his Wisdom to his Glory So here all are kept in their Measures of Grace Light Faith and the Spirit of Christ the heavenly and spiritual Man So let none quench the Spirit nor its Motions nor grieve it nor err from it but be led by it which keeps every one in their Tents Which holy Spirit of God giveth them an understanding how to serve and worship and please the holy pure God their Maker and Creator in Christ Jesus and how to wait and how to speak and so to answer the Spirit of God in his People in which holy Spirit is the holy Vnity and Fellowship And the holy Spirit teacheth the holy gentle meek and quiet lowly mind to answer the Seed that Christ hath sown upon all grounds and to answer the Light and Grace and Spirit and the Gospel in every Creature though they are gone from the Spirit Grace Light and Gospel in the heart so that by holy Walking all may come to do it as well as by holy Preaching that so God in all things may be glorified by you and that ye may bring forth Fruits to his praise Amen Swarthmore the 30th of the 10th Month 1679. G. F. About the latter end of this Year I was moved of the Lord to travel up into the South again Wherefore after I had taken my leave of my Wife and the Family and of the Neighbouring Friends I set forward on my Journey in the beginning of the First Month 1679 80 Westmorland Lancashire Yorkshire and passing through some parts of Westmorland and Lancashire I visited Friends at several Meetings and so came into Yorkshire Divers large and weighty Meetings I had in Yorkshire before I came to York-City and when I came there it was the Assize-time and there being many Friends in Prison for Truth 's sake I put Friends that were at liberty upon drawing up the Sufferings of the Friends that were in Prison 1680. York that they might be laid before the Judges and I assisted them therein There were then in York many Friends from several parts of the County for the Quarterly Meeting of Friends was at that time so that I had a brave opportunity among Friends and many weighty and serviceable things did the Lord open through me to the Meeting relating to both the inward state of Man how Man by faith in Christ comes to be grafted into him and made a Member of his Spiritual Body and also the outward state of the Church how each Member ought to walk and act according to its place in the Body I spent several days in York amongst Friends having divers Meetings amongst them and all was peaceable and well I went also to the Castle to visit the Friends that were Prisoners there with whom I spent some time encouraging them and strengtnening them in their Testimony Then leaving York I travelled on Southward through Yorkshire having Meetings in many places amongst Friends Yorkshire Lincolnshire Burton till I came to Burton in Lincolnshire where on the First-day of the Week I had a large and precious Meeting Then turning into Nottinghamshire Nottinghamshire I travelled among Friends through a good part of that County in which I had several very good Meetings and then passed into Darbyshire and through Leicestershire Darbyshire Leicestershire Warwickshire Warwick Southam Radway Oxfordshire North-Newton Banbury Oxfordshire Gloucestershire Northamptonshire Buckinghamshire Biddlesden Lillingstone Lovel Bugbrook Stonystratford Bedfordshire Dunstable Market-street Albans Mims Barnet Middlesex Gutters-hedge in Hendon London Yearly-Meeting and so into Warwickshire having Meetings all along as I went till I came to Warwick There William Dewsberry came to me and several other Friends and we had a little Meeting in than Town Then passing through Southam and Radway at each of which places I had a very good Meeting I came to Nathaniel Ball 's of North-Newton in Oxfordshire and so went to Banbury to a Monthly Meeting there And after I had visited Friends at their Meetings in the bordering parts both of Oxfordshire Gloucestershire and Northamptonshire I passed to Richard Baker's of Bidlesden in Buckinghamshire and the next day being the First-day of the Week I had a very large Meeting in Biddlesden at an old Abbeyhouse which a Friend Rented and dwelt in Many Friends and People came to this Meeting out of Oxfordshire Northamptonshire and the parts adjacent and of good Service it was After this Meeting I visited Friends in those parts having Meetings at Lillingstone Lovel and Bugbrook and then going to Stony-stratford I went from thence into some parts of Bedfordshire till I came to Edward Chester's of Dunstable From whence passing on by Market-street I had a Meeting at Albans and so calling on Friends at Mims and Barnet I came to the Widow Hayly's at Gutters-hedge in Hendon in Middlesex on a Seventh-day night and had a very large and good Meeting there the day following I passed from thence to London on the Third-day following and went directly to the Peel-Meeting at John Elsons and next morning to the Meeting at Gracious-street which was very large and quiet and Friends rejoyced in the Lord to see me The Yearly-Meeting was in the week following to which many Friends came up out of most parts of the Nation and a blessed Opportunity the Lord gave us together wherein the ancient Love was sweetly felt 1680. London and the heavenly Life flowed abundantly over all After the Yearly-Meeting was over and the Friends that came out of the Counties to it for the most part return'd homewards I continued about a Month or five weeks longer in and about London labouring in the Work of the Lord both in Meetings and out for besides the publick Testimony which the Lord gave me to bear both to Friends and to the World in Meetings I had much Service lay upon me with respect to Friends Sufferings in seeking to get Ease and Liberty for them in this and other Nations And much pains and time I spent while I was now at London in writing Letters to Friends in divers parts of England and in Scotland Holland Barbados and several other parts of America After I had spent about six weeks time in the Service of Truth in and about London I was moved of the Lord to go visit Friends in some parts of Surrey and Sussex Surrey Sussex Kingston I went down to Kingston by water and tarried there certain days for while I was there
the Lord laid it upon me to write to both the great Turk and the King of Algier severally to Warn them both and the People under them to turn from their wickedness and fear the Lord and do justly lest the Judgments of God came upon them and destroyed them without Remedy But to the Algerines I writ more particularly concerning the Cruelty they exercised towards Friends and others whom they held Captives in Algiers Now when I had finished that Service and visited Friends in their Meetings at Kingston I went on further into the County and had Meetings amongst Friends in many places Worplesdon Guildford Eshing Capell Patchgate Worminghurst Bletchington Horsham Ifield Rygate Gaton c Kingston Hammersmith Battersea Wansworth Kensington Hendon London Edmunton Hartford as at Worplesdon Guildford Eshing Capell Patchgate Worminghurst Bletchington Horsham Ifield Rygate Gaton c. and so came back to Kingston again and from thence to Hammersmith And having spent some days in the Service of Truth amongst Friends at Hammersmith Battersea Wansworth and thereabouts I crossed over by Kensington to Hendon where I had a very good Meeting on the First-day of the Week And having spent about two Months time in this Journey went from thence to London When I had been about Ten days in London I was drawn forth again to visit Friends in the Country and went down to Edmunton to Christopher Taylor 's who kept a School in his House for the educating of Friends Children I had some Service here amongst the Youths and then went on towards Hartford visiting several Friends in the way At Hartford I met with John Story and some others of his Party but the Testimony of Truth went over them and kept them down so that the Meeting was quiet It was on a First-day of the week and the next day being the Mens and Womens Meeting for business I visited them also and the rather because some in that place had let in a Dis-esteem of them Wherefore I was moved to open the Service of those Meetings and the Usefulness and Benefit thereof to the Church of Christ as the Lord opened the thing in me and it was of good Service to Friends 1680. Hartford I had a Meeting also with some of them there that were gone into Strife and Contention to shew them wherein they were wrong and having cleared my self of them I left them to the Lord. Then after I had had another publick Meeting in the Town Waltham-Abby I returned towards London by Waltham-Abby where I had a publick Meeting on the First-day following and another with Friends in the Evening Next day I went to Christopher Taylor 's at Edmunton and stay'd there a day or two Edmunton having some things upon me to write which were for the Service of Truth When I had finished that Service Schacklewell I went to London by Shacklewell where was a School kept by Friends for the breeding up Young Maidens that were Friends Daughters I abode at London most part of this Winter London having much Service for the Lord there both in Meetings and out For as it was a time of great Sufferings upon Friends I was drawn forth in Spirit to visit Friends Meetings more frequently to encourage and strengthen them both by Exhortation and Example The Parliament also was sitting and Friends were diligent to wait upon them to lay their Grievances before them of which we received fresh Accounts almost every day of the sad Sufferings Friends underwent in many parts of the Nation In this Service of seeking Relief for my suffering Brethren I spent much time together with other Friends who were freely given up to that Service attending at the Parliament-House day by day for many days together and watching all Opportunities to speak with such Members of either House as would hear our just Complaints And indeed some of the Members of each House were very Courteous to us and appeared willing to help us if they could But the Parliament being then earnest in Examining the Popish Plot and contriving ways to discover such as were Popishly Affected our Adversaries took advantages against us because they knew we could not Swear nor Fight to Expose us to those Penalties that were made against Papists though they knew in their Consciences that we were no Papists and had had Experience of us that we were no Plotters Wherefore to clear our Innocency in those Cases and to stop the Mouths of our Adversaries I drew up a short Paper to be delivered to the Parliament which was as followeth IT is our Principle and Testimony to deny and renounce all Plots and Plotters against the King or any of his Subjects for we have the Spirit of Christ by which the have the Mind of Christ who came to save mens lives and not to destroy them and we would have the King and all his Subjects to be safe Wherefore we do declare that we will endeavour to our power to save and defend him and them by discovering all Plots and Plotters which shall come to our knowledge that would destroy the King or his Subjects This we do sincerely offer unto you But as to Swearing and Fighting which in tenderness of Conscience we cannot do ye know that we have suffered these many years for our Consciencious Refusal thereof 1680. London And now that the Lord hath brought you together we desire you to Relieve us and free us from those Sufferings and that ye will not put upon us to do those things which we have suffered so much and so long already for not doing for if you do ye will make our Sufferings and Bonds stronger instead of Relieving us G. F. About this time I received Two very envious Books written against Truth and Friends one of them by a Doctor so called of Bremen in Germany the other by a Priest of Dantzick in Poland They were both full of gross Falshoods and â—ad in them many reproachful Slanders I found it upon me to Answer them both and that I might not be over-much interrupted therein by other Business and Company I got out of London for a little while Kingston upon Thames and went down to Kingston upon Thames were I writ an Answer to each of them And also an Answer to some other Scandalous Papers which had been printed and scattered about to mis-represent Friends by While I was there I writ also the following Paper to perswade the Magistrates to Moderation towards Dissenters and take off their Edge to Persecution And because it should have its full Service I directed it To all the Rulers Magistrates and them that are in Authority and Law-makers in England Scotland and Ireland from the Highest to the Lowest and to all other Magistrates every where in that which is called Christendom Desiring their Health and Peace and Tranquillity and Life and Salvation in Christ Jesus the Lord of Glory and Lamb of God that takes away the Sins of the
First Month 1683. I went to Kingston upon Thames and it being then a time of Persecution as I went to the Meeting I met the Chief Constable who had been at the Meeting-Place Kingston upon Thames and had set Watchmen there to keep us out yet he was pretty Civil and the Watchmen let Friends have a couple of Forms out to sit upon in the High-way so Friends met together there and a very precious Meeting we had for the refreshing Presence of the Lord was with us in which we parted in peace Having visited and encouraged Friends there I returned to London and went to the Meeting at Bull and Mouth London Bull and M. Meeting where the Constables with their Watchmen kept a Guard to keep Friends out of the House So we met in the Street and when any Friend spake the Officers and Watchmen made a great bustle to pull him down and take him into Custody After some other Friends had spoken it was upon me to speak and I said Heaven is God's Throne and Earth is his Footstool and will ye not let us stand upon God's Footstool to worship and serve the living God While I spake they were quiet and after I had cleared my self of what was upon me to speak we brake up our Meeting in peace This was on the Sixth-day of the Week On the First-day of the Week following I was moved to go to the Meeting at Gracious-street and when I came there Grac. Meet I found a Guard set at the Entrance in Lumbard-street and another at the Gate in Gracious-street to keep Friends out of the Meeting-Place so that we were fain to meet abroad in the Street After some time I got a Chair and stood up in it and spake largely to the People Opening the Principles of Truth to them and declaring many weighty Truths concerning Magistracy and concerning the Lord's Prayer There was besides Friends a great Multitude of People and amongst them many Professors and all was very quiet for the Lord's Power was over all and in the Lord's time we broke up our Meeting and departed in peace The next day I went down to Guilford in Surrey Surrey Guilford Sussex Worminghurst and having visited Friends there I passed from thence to Worminghurst in Sussex where I had a very blessed Meeting among Friends and free from disturbance While I was there James Claypoole of London who with his Wife was there also was suddenly taken very ill with so violent a Fit of the Stone 1683. Worminghurst that he could neither stand nor lie but through the extremity of pain cried out like a Woman in Travel When I heard it I was much exercised in Spirit for him and went to him and after I had spoken a few words to him to turn his mind inward I was moved to lay my hand upon him and prayed the Lord to rebuke his Infirmity And as I laid my hand on him the Lord's Power went through him and through Faith in that Power he had speedy Ease so that he quickly fell into a sleep And when he awaked the Stone came from him like dirt and he was so well that the next day he rode with me five and twenty miles in a Coach though he used formerly as he said to lie sometimes two weeks sometimes a month with one of those Fits of the Stone But the Lord was intreated for him and by his Power soon gave him Ease at this time blessed and praised be his holy Name therefore Now after I had had some Meetings in Sussex and Surrey and had visited Friends there aways I returned to London by Kingston Kingston where I had a Meeting on the First-day of the second Month being the First-day of the Week also We were kept out of the Meeting-House by a Constable and Watchmen as before and so were fain to meet in the High-way But it being the Monthly-Meeting-day and many of the World's People being there the Meeting was pretty large and very quiet and the Lord's blessed Presence was amongst us blessed be his Name for ever London Wheel Meet Being come to London I went to the Meeting at Wheeler-street near Spittle-fields which that day proved very large For besides that there were more Friends there that day than usually there came also many Professors to the Meeting that day and a glorious blessed Meeting it was for the Lord's Power and Truth was over all and many deep and weighty things were opened to the People to their great Satisfaction I tarried now in and near about London visiting Friends Meetings and labouring in the Service of the Gospel until the Yearly-Meeting came on which began on the 28th of the third Month this Year It was a time of great Sufferings and much concerned I was lest Friends that came up out of the Countries on the Churches-Service should be taken and imprisoned at London But the Lord was with us and his Power preserved us and gave us a sweet and blessed Opportunity to wait upon him and be refreshed together in him and to perform those Services for his Truth and People for which we met Now inasmuch as it was a time of great Persecution and we understood by our Friends who came out of the several parts of the Nation that in most Counties Friends were under great Sufferings either by Imprisonments or spoilings of Goods or both a concern was weightily upon me lest any Friends that were Sufferers especially such as were Traders and Dealers in the World should hazard the losing of other mens Goods or Estates through their Sufferings Wherefore as the thing opened in me 1683. London I drew an Epistle of Caution to Friends in that Case which I communicated to the Brethren at the Yearly-Meeting and from thence it was sent forth among Friends throughout the Nation A Copy of which here followeth DEar Friends and Brethren in the Lord Jesus Christ who is your only Sanctuary in this day of Storm and Persecution Spoiling of Goods and Imprisonments Let every ones Eye be unto him who has all Power in Heaven and Earth given unto him so that none can touch an hair of your head nor you nor any thing ye have except it be permitted or suffered in this day to Try his People whether their minds be with the Lord or in the Outward things And now Dear Friends take care that all your Offerings may be free and of your own that has cost you something so that ye may not offer of that which is another man's or that which ye are intrusted withal and not your own or Fatherless or Widows Estates but all such things ye may settle and establish in their places You may remember many years ago in a time of great Persecution there were divers Friends who were Traders Shop-keepers and others who had the Concerns of Widows and Fatherless and other Peoples Estates in their hands And when a great Suffering Persecution and Spoiling of Goods
Dolston I made some stay at the Widow Stots and there I writ an Epistle to Friends 1683. Dolston declaring the Word of the Lord unto them which Epistle being then printed may be read amongst my other printed Books I came from Dolston to London London and the next day was sent for in haste to my Son Rouse's at Kingston Kingston whose daughter Margaret lay very sick and had a desire to see me I tarried now at Kingston about a week and then returned to London London where I continued for the most part of the Winter and the Spring following until the General Meeting in the Year 1684. save that I went once as far as Enfield to visit Friends thereabouts And in this time I ceased not to labour in the Work of the Lord being frequent at Meetings and visiting Friends that were Prisoners or that were sick and in writing Books for the spreading of Truth and opening the Understandings of People to receive it The Yearly-Meeting was in the Third Month and a blessed weighty Meeting it was wherein Friends were sweetly refreshed together for the Lord was with us Yearly Meeting and opened his heavenly Treasures amongst us And though it was a time of great difficulty and danger by reason of Informers and persecuting Magistrates yet the Lord was a Defence and Place of Safety to his People Now had I drawings in Spirit to go into Holland to visit the Seed of God in those Provinces And as soon as the Yearly Meeting was over and most of the Country-Friends gone out of Town I prepared for my Journey There went with me from London Alexander Parker George Watts and Nathaniel Brassey who also had drawings into that Country We took Coach on the 31th of the Third Month 84. and got to Colchester that night Colchester The next day being the First-day of the Week we went to the Meeting there and though there was no notice given of my coming thither yet our being there was presently spread over the Town and in several places in the Country at seven and ten Miles distance so that abundance of Friends came in double-horsed which made the Meeting very Large I had a Concern and Travel in my mind lest this great Gathering should have stirred up the Town and been more than the Magistrates could well bear but it was very quiet and peaceable and a glorious Meeting we had to the settling and stablishing of Friends both in Town and Country for the Lord's Power was over all blessed be his Name for ever Truly the Lord's Power and Presence was beyond words for I was but Weak to go into a Meeting and my Face by reason of a Cold I had taken was sore but God was strong and manifested his strength in us and with us and all was well the Lord have the Glory for evermore for his supporting Power After the Meeting there came I think above an hundred Friends of the Town and Country to see me at John Furley's and very glad we were to see one another and greatly refreshed we were together being filled with the Love and Riches of the Lord blessed be his Name for ever 1684. Colchester We tarried at Colchester two days more which we spent in visiting Friends there both at their Meetings for Business and at their Houses Then early in the Morning on the Fourth-day of the Week Harwich we took Coach for Harwich where we met with William Bingley and Samuel Waldenfield who also went over with us About the eighth hour at night we went on board the Pacquet-Boat of which one Richard Gray was Master but by reason of Contrary Winds it was the first hour in the morning before we sailed We had a very good Passage and about the fifth hour in the Afternoon next day we landed at the Briel in Holland HOLLAND Briel and there we stay'd that night Early next morning we went to Rotterdam Rotterdam where we abode some days The next day after we came to Rotterdam one Wilbert Frouzen a Burgomaster and Kinsman of Aarent Sunneman's hearing that I was there Invited me to his Country-house having a desire to speak with me about some business relating to Aarent Sunneman's Daughters I took George Watts with me and a Brother of Aarent Sunneman's had us thither The Burgomaster received us very kindly and was very glad to see me and entring into discourse about his Kinsman's Daughters I found he was apprehensive that their Father being dead and having left them considerable Portions they might be stollen and married to their disadvantage Wherefore I told him That it was our Principle and Practice that none should Marry amongst us unless they had a Certificate of the Consent of their Relations or Guardians for it was our Christian Care to watch over and look after all young People that came among us especially those whose natural Relations were dead And as for his Kinsman's Daughters we should take care that nothing should be offered to them but what should be agreeable to Truth and Righteousness and that they might be preserved in the Fear of God according to their Father's Mind This seem'd to give him great satisfaction While I was with him there came many great People to me and I exhorted them all to keep in the Fear of God and to mind his good Spirit in them to keep their Minds to the Lord. After I had stay'd two or three hours and had had discourse with him of several things I took my leave of him and he very friendly set me to Rotterdam in his Chariot The next day being the First-day of the Week we were at the Meeting at Rotterdam which was pretty large and we de-declared to the People by an Interpreter The day following one Alderman Gaul came to speak with me and with him I and the other Friends had much discourse about Religious Matters wherewith he seemed to be well satisfied and was very Tender Several other Persons of Account intended to have come to speak with me that day but being hindred by extraordinary business as I understood they came not Amsterdam We went next day from Rotterdam to Amsterdam where we had a large and very precious Meeting And in the Afternoon I was at another Meeting with the Friends there about Business There is a Yearly-Meeting at Amsterdam for the Friends of Holland and Germany c. 1684. Amsterdam which begun now on the Eighth day of the Fourth Month and ended on the Twelfth Here we had a fine Opportunity of seeing Friends from divers parts and of being refreshed together in the Love of God And after this Meeting before the Friends that came out of the several Provinces were gone we had a Meeting with some particular Friends about the Places and Countries into which we who came out of England in the Work of the Ministry were to travel and to understand who among them were suitable Persons to go along
falsly and did not this Hananiah pretend to speak the Word of the Lord to the Priests and People as in Jeremiah the 28th And did not Isaiah judge in Divine Matters when he judged the Watchmen and the Shepherds Isa 56. And did not Micah judge in Divine and Spiritual Matters when he said he was full of the Power by the Spirit of the Lord and of Judgment did not he Judge both of Priests and Prophets and Judges though they would lean upon the Lord and say Is not the Lord amongst us and no evil can come unto us yet did not he let them see their States and Conditions and divided the precious from the vile Mich. 3. And so the rest of the Prophets you may see here they Judged for God in his Divine Matters who served him and who served him not and who lived in truth and who not and likewise the Apostles And this Divine Spiritual Heavenly Judgment was given of God to his holy Men and Women And they that do Judge in God's Divine Matters must live in his Divine Spirit and Power and Light now as they did then which Spiritual and Divine Judgment Christ has given to his Church that be the living Stones and living Members that makes up his spiritual Houshold to try Jews and to try Apostles and to try Prophets and to try Faith and to try Religions and to try Trees and Fruits and to try Shepherds and Teachers and to try Spirits So the living Members have a living and divine Judgment in the Church of Christ which he is the Head of the Judge of all Nay the Church has a Power given them which is farther then a Judgment for what they bind on Earth is bound in Heaven by the Power of God and what they loose on Earth is loosed in Heaven by the Power of God and this Power has Christ given to his living Members the Church The 20th of the 12th Month 1685 6. G. F. to Friends 1686. London I came back to London in the First Month 1686. and set my self with all diligence to look after Friends sufferings which we had now some hopes of getting Relief for The Sessions came on in the Second Month at Hicks's Hall where many Friends had Appeals to be Tried with whom I was from Day to Day to advise and see that no Opportunity were slipt nor Advantage lost and they generally succeeded well Soon after also the King was pleased upon our often laying our Sufferings before him To give order for the Releasing of all Prisoners that were imprisoned for Conscience sake and which were in his power to discharge Whereby the Prison doors were opened and many hundreds of Friends some of whom had been long in Prison were set at Liberty and some of them who had for many years been restrained in Bonds Yearly Meeting came now up to the Yearly-Meeting which was in the Third Month this Year Which caused great Joy to Friends to see our Ancient Faithful Brethren again at Liberty in the Lord's Work after their long Confinements And indeed a precious Meeting we had the refreshing Presence of the Lord appearing plentifully with us and amongst us After the Meeting I was moved to write a few Lines to be sent abroad amongst Friends the tenor whereof was thus Dear Friends MY Love is to you all in the holy Seed Christ Jesus that bruises the Serpent's head and destroys the Devil and his Works and who hath all Power in Heaven and Earth given to him Let every ones Faith stand in him and in his Power who is the Author and Finisher of your Faith And now ye who have been Partakers of his Power and are sensible of it in this Day of his Power that is over all whose day and power is over darkness and its power And by his Power the hearts of the King and Rulers have been opened by which your outward Prison-doors have been set open for your Liberty And therefore my desires are that all may be preserved in Humility and Thankfulness in the sense of the Mercies of the Lord and live in the peaceable Truth that is over all that ye may answer God's Grace and his Light and Spirit in all in a righteous godly Life and Conversation And let none be lifted up by their outward Liberty nor let none be cast down by Suffering for Christ's sake but all live in the Seed which is as Wheat which is not shaken nor blown away by the Winds and Storms as the Chaff is Which Seed of Life none below can make higher or lower for the Children of the Seed are the Children of the everlasting unchangeable Kingdom of Christ and God So in Christ Jesus whom God hath given you for a Sanctuary God Almighty keep you in whom ye have Life Everlasting and Wisdom which is from above pure peaceable gentle and easie to be intreated full of Mercy and good Fruits 1686. London Yearly Meeting that ye all now may be exercised in it and may practise this Wisdom in your godly holy Lives and Conversations so that this Wisdom may be justified of all her Children and they I say exercised and preserved in it in this day of the Power of Christ in which all his People are made a willing People to serve and worship God in Righteousness and Holiness and in the Spirit and Truth So that none may abuse the Power of the Lord nor grieve his Spirit by which you are sealed and kept to the day of Salvation and Redemption But always exercise your selves to have a good Conscience void of Offence towards God and towards all men being exercised in Holiness Godliness and Righteousness and in the Truth and in the Love of it that ye may all study to be approved unto God in Innocency Vertue Simplicity and Faithfulness and so labouring and studying to be quiet in the Will of God in all Conditions And whatsoever ye do in Word or Deed do all in the Name of the Lord Jesus giving Thanks to God the Father by him That he who is over all may have the Praise for all his Mercies and Blessings with which he doth and hath refreshed his People and by his Eternal Arm and Power hath kept and preserved his People to this day Glory to his Name over all for ever Amen! For Christ hath called you by his Grace into One Body to him the holy Head And therefore live in Charity and in the Love of God which is the Bond of Perfectness in his Body which Love edifies the Body of Christ which Body and all his Members are knit together and increased with the Increase of God from whom they receive Nourishment For by one Spirit we are all baptized into one Body and have been made all to drink into one Spirit in which Spirit the Body and all his Members have Fellowship with Christ the Head and one with another And so the Vnity of this holy Spirit is the Bond of Peace of all the living
Members of Christ Jesus of which he is the Spiritual Head Rock and Foundation And in the midst of his Church of living Members Christ exercises his Spiritual Prophetical Office to open to them the Mysteries of his Kingdom And is a Spiritual Bishop to oversee them that they do not go astray from the living God that made them and a Shepherd that feeds them with Bread and Water of Life from Heaven and none is able to pluck his Sheep out of his hands and he is a Priest that died for them and sanctifieth them and presents them to God who ruleth in their Hearts by the Divine Faith which he is the Author and Finisher of And his living Members do praise God through Jesus Christ in whom they have Life and Salvation who reconciles them to God that they can say they have Peace with God through Jesus Christ and so praise God through him that was dead and is alive again and reigns over all and liveth for evermore blessed for ever Hallelujah Amen! Greet one another with an holy Kiss of Charity and this Kiss of Charity is above all the Kisses of the World for Love and Charity beareth all things believeth all things hopeth all things and endures all things It envieth not and Charity vaunteth not it self nor is puffed up nor doth it behave it self unseemly It rejoices not in Iniquity but rejoices in the Truth And Charity is not easily provoked and thinks no Evil but suffereth long and is kind And Charity never faileth I say Greet one another with this holy Kiss of Charity and Peace be with you all that are in Christ Jesus your Life and Salvation The 30th of the 3d Month 1686. G. F. I remained for the most part of this Year in London save that sometimes I got out to Bednal-Green for a Night or two Bednal-Green Enfield Chiswick and some times went as far as Enfield and thereabouts amongst Friends and once or twice to Chiswick where an Ancient Friend had set up a School for the Educating of Friends Children in all which places I found Service for the Lord. London And when I was at London I spent my time amongst Friends either in Publick Meetings as the Lord drew me or visiting Friends that were not well and in looking after the Sufferings of Friends For though very many Friends were released out of Prisons yet some remained Prisoners still for Tithes c. and Sufferings of several sorts lay heavy yet on Friends in many places Yet inasmuch as many Friends that had been Prisoners were now set at Liberty I felt a Concern upon me that none might look too much at Man but might Eye the Lord therein from whom deliverance comes Wherefore I writ an Epistle to Friends and sent it abroad to be read amongst them as followeth Friends THE Lord by his Eternal Power hath opened the heart of the King to open the Prison-doors by which about Fifteen or Sixteen hundred are set at Liberty and hath given a Check to the Informers so that in many places our Meetings are pretty quiet So my desires are that both Liberty and Sufferings all may be sanctified to his People and Friends may prize the Mercies of the Lord in all things and to him be thankful who stilleth the Raging Waves of the Seas and allayeth the Storms and Tempests and maketh a Calm And therefore it is good to trust in the Lord and cast your Care upon him who careth for you For when ye were in your Gaols and Prisons Then the Lord did by his Eternal Arm and Power uphold you and sanctified them to you and unto some he made them as a Sanctuary and tried his People as in a Furnace of Affliction both in Prisons and spoiling of Goods And in all this the Lord was with his People and taught them to know that The Earth is the Lord's and the Fulness thereof 1686. London and that he was in all places who crowneth the year with his goodness Psal 65. Therefore let all God's People be diligent and careful to keep the Camp of God holy pure and clean and to serve God and Christ and one another in the glorious peaceable Gospel of Life and Salvation which Glory shines over God's Camp and his great Prophet and Bishop and Shepherd is among or in the midst of them exercising his heavenly Offices in them so that you his People may Rejoice in Christ Jesus through whom you have Peace with God For he that destroyeth the Devil and his Work and bruises the Serpent's Head is all God's Peoples heavenly Foundation and Rock to build upon which was the holy Prophets and Apostles Rock in days past and is now a Rock of our Ages which Rock and Foundation of God standeth sure And upon this the Lord God establish all his People Amen London the 25th of the 7th Month 1686. G. F. Divers other Epistles and Papers relating to Friends and Truth I writ this Year whereof one was by way of Exhortation to Friends to keep in Vnity in the Truth in which there is no Division nor Separation And thus it was DEar Friends and Brethren in the Lord Jesus Christ in whom ye have all Peace and Life and in him there is no Division nor Schism nor Rent nor Strife nor Separation for Christ is not divided and there can be no Separation in the Truth nor in the Light Grace Faith and Holy Ghost but Unity and Fellowship and Communion For the Devil was the first that went out of the Truth and separated from it and tempted Man and Woman to disobey God and to go from the Truth into a false Liberty to do that which God forbad And so it is the Serpent now that leads Men and Women into a false Liberty even the God of the World from which Man and Woman must be separated by the Truth that Christ the Truth may make them free and then they are free indeed And then they are to stand fast in that Liberty in which Christ hath made them free and in him as I said before there is no Division nor Schism nor Rent nor Separation but Peace and Life and Reconciliation to God and to one another So that in Christ Male and Female are all one for whether they be Male or Female Jew or Gentile Bond or Free they are all one in Christ And there can be no Schism Rent or Division in him nor in the Worship of God in his holy Spirit and Truth nor in the pure and undefiled Religion that keeps from the Spots of the World nor in the Love of God that beareth and endureth all things nor in the Word of God's Grace for it is pure and endureth for ever Many you see have lost the Word of Patience and the Word of Wisdom that is pure and peaceable and gentle and easie to be intreated Then they run into the Wisdom that is below that is earthly sensual and devilish and very uneasie to be intreated And they
together in the heavenly places in him And so are clothed with Christ Jesus the Sun who is the Mountain that filleth the whole Earth with his Divine Power and Light And so all his People see him and feel him both by Sea and Land so he is in all places of the Earth felt and seen of all his And Christ Jesus saith to the outward Professors the Jews I am from above ye are from below or beneath ye are of this World to wit that is beneath And so their Religions Worships Ways Teachers Faiths Beliefs and Creeds are made of Men and are below and of this World that changeth like the Moon and ye may see their Religions Ways Worships and Teachers they are all changeable like the Moon but Christ the Sun with which the Church is clothed doth not change nor his Church for they are spiritually minded and their Way Worship and Religion is spiritual from Christ who is from above and not of this World For Christ hath redeemed you from the World and their changeable Rudiments and Elements and old things and their changeable Teachers and from their changeable Faiths and Beliefs For Christ is the Author and Finisher of his Churches Faith who is from above and saith Believe in the Light that ye may become Children of the Light And it is given them not only to believe but to suffer for his Name So this Faith and Belief is above all Faiths and Beliefs which change like the Moon And God's People are an holy Nation a peculiar People a spiritual Houshold and Royal Priesthood offering up spiritual Sacrifice to God by Jesus Christ and are zealous of righteous godly good works and their Zeal is for that which is of God against the Evil which is not of God And Christ took upon him the Seed of Abraham he doth not say the corrupt Seed of the Gentiles So according to the Flesh he was of the holy Seed of Abraham and of David and his holy Body and Blood was an Offering and a Sacrifice for the Sins of the whole World as a Lamb without blemish whose Flesh saw no Corruption And so by the one Offering of himself in the New Testament and New Covenant he has put an end to all the Offerings and Sacrifices amongst the Jews in the Old Testament And Christ the holy Seed was crucified dead and buried according to the Flesh and raised again the third day and his Flesh saw no Corruption Though he was crucified in the Flesh yet quickned again by the Spirit and is alive and liveth for evermore and hath all Power in Heaven and Earth given to him and reigneth over all and is the One Mediator betwixt God and Man even the Man Christ Jesus And Christ said He gave his flesh for the life of the World And the Apostle saith His Flesh saw no Corruption So that which saw no Corruption he gave for the life of the corrupt World to bring them out of Corruption And Christ said again He that eateth my Flesh and drinketh my Blood hath eternal life for my Flesh is Meat indeed and my Blood is Drink indeed And he that eateth my Flesh and drinketh my Blood dwelleth in me and I in him And he that eats not his Flesh and drinks not his Blood which is the life of the Flesh hath not Eternal Life Now as the Apostle saith All died in Adam Then all are dead Now all coming spiritually to eat the Flesh of Christ the second Adam and drink his Blood his Blood and Flesh gives all the Dead in Adam life and quickens them out of their sins and trespasses in which they were dead and so they come to sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus and so are living Members of the Church of Christ that he is the Head of and are clothed with the Sun the Sun of Righteousness the Son of God that never changes and have the changeable Moon under their feet and all changeable worldly things and inventions and works of mens hands and do see the People how that they do change from one Worship to another and from one Religion to another and from one Way to another and one Church to another and yet their hearts are not changed And the Letter of Scripture is read by the Christians like the Jews but the Mystery is hid They have the Sheeps-clothing the outside but are inwardly ravened from the Spirit which should bring them into the Lamb's and Sheep's Nature The Scripture saith All the Vncircumcised must go down into the Pit And therefore all must be Circumcised with the Spirit of God which puts off the Body of Death and Sins of the Flesh that came into Man and Woman by their Disobedience and transgressing of God's Commands I say all must be Circumcised with the Spirit which puts off the Body of Death and Sins of the Flesh before they come up into Christ their Rest that never fell and be clothed with him the Sun of Righteousness G. F. Kingston Towards the latter End of this Year I went down to Kingston to visit Friends there and stay'd some time at my Son Rouse's near Kingston While I Was there I writ a Paper concerning the Falling away foretold by the Apostle Paul 2 Thess 2.3 Which Paper was as followeth THE Apostle saith that there must be a Falling away first before the Wicked one and Man of sin the Son of Perdition be Revealed which betrayeth Christ within as the Son of Perdition betrayed Christ without And they that betray Christ within crucifie to themselves Christ afresh and put him to open shame Before the Apostles deceased this Man of Sin and Son of Perdition was revealed for they saw the Antichrist come and false Prophets and false Apostles and Deceivers come having a Form of Godliness but denied the Power thereof They saw the Wolves dressed in the Sheep's Clothing and such as went in Cain's Corah's and Balaam's way and Jezabel's and the Whore of Babylon the Whore of Confusion the Mother of Harlots and such as were Enemies to the Cross of Christ that served not the Lord Jesus Christ but their own Bellies These Christ saw should come and said If it were possible they should deceive the Elect and commanded his Followers not to go after them And the Apostle said Turn away from such and Christ and his Apostles warned the Church of Christ of such And now in this day of Christ and his Gospel after the long Night of Apostacy from the Light and Grace and Truth and Life and Spirit of Christ Jesus the Son of Perdition the wicked One the Man of Sin is revealed again and the inwardly ravening Wolves in Sheeps clothing and the Spirit of Cain Corah Balaam Jezabel the Antichrists false Prophets and false Apostles and such as are Enemies to the Cross of Christ who serve not the Lord Jesus but their own Bellies and crucifie Christ to themselves and put him to open shame This Spirit have we seen in
Yearly-Meeting was over which this Year was about the beginning of the Fourth Month. A precious Meeting it was and a very refreshing Season Friends had together the Lord vouchsafing to honour our Assemblies with his living and glorious Presence in a very plentiful manner At the Conclusion of the Meeting I felt a Concern upon my Spirit to give forth the following Paper to be dispersed abroad amongst Friends ALL you Believers in the Light that are become Children of the Light walk as Children of the Light and of the Day of Christ and as a City set on a Hill that cannot be hid and so let your Light shine that People may see your good Works and glorifie your Father which is in Heaven For a good Tree bringeth forth good Fruit and therefore be ye Trees of Righteousness the planting of the Lord having Fruits unto Holiness and then your End will be Everlasting life And such are the Wells and Cisterns that hold the living Water of life which springs up in them to Eternal life so ye may all drink Water out of your own Cisterns and running Water out of your own Wells and eat every one of his own Fig-tree and of his own Vine having Salt every one in your selves to season every one's Sacrifice acceptable to God by Jesus Christ and like unto the Wise Virgins that have Oil in their Lamps and follow the Lamb and enter in with the Bridegroom 1688. London Yearly-Meeting And now is the time to Labour while it is day yea the Day of Christ and to stir up every one's pure Mind and the Gift of God that is in them and to improve your Talents that Christ hath given you that ye may profit And to walk every one according to the Measure that Christ hath given you for the Manifestation of the Spirit of God is given to every one to profit withal Now consider what you have profited in spiritual and heavenly things with the heavenly Spirit of God and be not like the wicked and slothful that hid his Talent from whom it was taken and he cast into Utter darkness And a Dwarf or one that had any blemish was not to come nigh to Offer upon God's Altar And therefore mind the Word of Wisdom to keep you out of that which will Corrupt you and Blemish you and that ye may grow in Grace and in Faith and in the Knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ and feeding upon the Milk of the Word may grow by it that ye may not be Dwarfs and so to Offer your spiritual Sacrifice upon God's holy Altar For the Field or Vineyard of the slothful grows over with Thorns and Nettles and his Walls go down such are they that are not diligent in the Spirit of God and the Power which is the Wall a sure Fence and the Spirit of God will Weed out all both Thorns and Thistles and Nettles out of the Vineyard of the heart And you that are Keepers of others Vineyards see that you keep your own Vineyard clean with the Spirit and Power of Christ and sanctifie your selves and sanctifie the Lord in your hearts that ye may be a holy People to the Lord who saith Be ye holy for I am holy that ye may be the holy Members of the Church of Christ that is clothed with the Sun and hath the Moon under her feet the changeable World with all her changeable Worships Religions Churches and Teachers And be ye new and heavenly Jerusalem's Children for new and heavenly Jerusalem that is above is the Mother of all the Children of the Light and that are born of the Spirit and these be they that have been persecuted and have suffered by the false Church Mystery Babylon and Mother of Harlots And now all heavenly Jerusalem's and Sion's Children that are from above labour in the Gospel the Power of God and the Seed in which all Nations and all the Families of the Earth are blessed which Seed Christ bruises the Serpent's head and destroys the Devil and his Works and overcomes the Whore the false Church and the Beast and the false Prophet And takes away the Curse and the Vail that is spread over all Nations and over all the Families of the Earth and brings the Blessing upon all Nations and upon all the Families of the Earth if they will receive it saying In thy Seed shall all Nations and all the Families of the Earth be blessed And this is the Gospel of God preached to Abraham before Moses writ his Five Books and was preached in the Apostles days and is now preached again Which Gospel brings Life and Immortality to light and is the Gospel of Peace Life and Salvation to every one that believes it And so all Nations and all the Families of the Earth must be in Christ the Seed if they be blessed and be partakers of the Blessing in the Seed which Gospel God did preach and reveal to Abraham as in Gal. 3.8 And this Gospel was revealed and preached by Christ unto his Apostles who preached it which is not of Man nor from Man And now God and Christ hath Revealed the same Gospel unto me and many others in this Age I say the Gospel and the Seed in which all Nations and Families of the Earth are blessed in which Gospel I have laboured and do labour that all may come into this blessed Seed Christ who bruises the head of the Serpent that in it they might have peace with God And this Everlasting Gospel is preached again to them that dwell upon the Earth and they that believe it and receive it receive the Blessing and the Peace and Joy and Comfort of it and the stability in it and the life and immortality which it brings to light in them and to them And such can praise the Everlasting God in his Everlasting Gospel And Friends all seek the peace and good of all in Christ for Truth makes no Cains Corahs Balaams nor Judasses for they come to be such that go out of the peaceable Truth And therefore walk in the peaceable Truth and speak the Truth in the love of it as it is in Jesus G. F. Sometime after the Yearly-Meeting was over I went to my Son Mead's House Essex Gooses called Gooses in Essex and abode there some Weeks often visiting Friends Meeting near there and sometimes at Barking And after I had been a while there I went to visit Friends at Waltham-Abbey and at Hodsdon Waltham-Abbey Hodsdon Eâ—field South-street Ford-green Winchmore-hill and about Enfield South-street Ford-Green and Winchmore-Hill where I had several very serviceable Meetings amongst Friends the Lord opening many deep and weighty things through me both for the Informing the Understandings of Inquirers and building up those that were gathered into the Truth and establishing them therein It was in the Seventh Month that I returned to London having been near Three Months in the Country for my health's sake which now was very much Impaired so that
together in the Name of Jesus and Serving and Worshipping God their Creator No they must not Breathe in their Natural Air neither Natural nor Spiritual in your Dominions I pray where had you these Commands from neither from Christ nor his Apostles And do not you profess the Scriptures of the New Testament to be your Rule but I pray you what Scripture have you for this your practice It is good for you to be Humble and do Justly and love Mercy and Call home your Banished and Love them and Cherish them yea though they were your Enemies you are to obey the Command of Christ and Love them I wonder how you and your Wives and Families can sleep quietly in your Beds that do such Cruel Actions without thinking the Lord may do to you the same Yout cannot be without Sense and Feeling except you be given over to Reprobation without Sense and Feeling and your Consciences seared with a hot Iron But Christian Charity doth hope that you are not all in that state but that there may be some Relenting or Consideration of your Actions among some of you either according to the Law of God or his Gospel From him that desires your Temporal and Eternal Good and Salvation and not Destruction Amen Middlesex the 28th of the 2d Month 1688. G. F. Peter Thou may'st Translate this into High-Dutch and send them and you may print it if you will and spread it abroad and Translate that part of the Letter that is to Friends into High-Dutch and send to them Having stay'd in the Country about Three Weeks 1689. London Yearly-Meeting I return'd to London a little before the Yearly-Meeting which was in the Third Month this Year and was a very Solemn Weighty Meeting the Lord as formerly visiting his People and honouring the Assembly with his glorious Presence to the great Satisfaction and Comfort of Friends After the Business of the Meeting was over it was upon me to add a few Lines to the Epistle which went from the Meeting to Friends after this manner Dear Friends and Brethren WHO have known the Lord's Eternal Arm and Power that hath preserved you upon the heavenly Rock and Foundation and hath built your House upon it you have known many Winds Tempests and Storms that have risen out of that Sea where the Beast rose and many raging Storms that have risen by Apostates of several sorts but the Seed that bruises the Serpent's head and is the Foundation of God's People stands sure And therefore Dear Friends and Brethren though there be great Shakings in the World the Lord's Power is over all and his Kingdom cannot be shaken And therefore all ye Children of God Children of the Light and Heirs of his Kingdom a Joyful Peaceable Habitation keep in keeping out of all the Heats Contentions and Disputes about things below And Lay hand on no man nor no thing suddenly lest they should be puffed up with that which fades and so come to loss but mind the Lord's Power that keeps open your heavenly Eye to see things present and to come and in that ye will see and handle the Word of Life And Dear Friends every where Have power over your own Spirits As God hath blessed you with his Outward things have a care of Trusting in them or falling into Difference one with another about these Outward Things that are below which will pass away But all live in the Love of God and in that live in peace with God and one with another And follow the Works of Charity and overcome the Evil with the Good to all For what Good have all the Tinklers done with their Cymbals and sounding Brass They always bred Confusion and never did Good in any Age Tinkling with their Cymbals and sounding with their Brass to draw out the Simple to follow them And therefore it is good for all the Children of God to keep in their Possessions of Life and in the Love of God that is Everlasting And as for all the Tumults of the World and the Apostates from the Truth the Lord's Power is over them all and Christ reigns and the Lord saith No Weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper Isa 54.17 And now Friends you are not unsensible how many Weapons have been formed against us who are the Sons and Daughters of God and the Lord hath restrained them according to his Promise they have not prospered And the Lord said Every Tongue that shall rise up in Judgment against thee thou shalt Condemn so God hath given such a Power to his Children to Condemn all the Tongues that shall rise up in Judgment against them and this is the Heritage of the Servants of the Lord Their Righteousness is of me saith the Lord. And you are not unsensible of the many Tongues that have risen up against us in Judgment yea of Apostates and Prophane But in and with the Truth and the Power of God according to the Promise of God Every Tongue that riseth against thee thou shalt Condemn So it is not one Tongue only thou shalt Condemn but Every Tongue that shall rise up in Judgment against thee thou shalt Condemn So the Lord giveth this Power to his Servants and Children to judge the Evil Tongues and he doth restrain the Weapons formed against them so that they shall not prosper against his Children that he hath begotten Praises and Honour be to his holy Name for ever Amen G. F. Soon after this Meeting was over the Yearly Meeting began at York which because of the Largeness of that County and for the Conveniency of Friends in the Northern parts had for some Years been held there And inasmuch as there had been some Hurt done in that place as some Division made there by some that were gone out of the Vnity of Friends It was upon me to write a few Lines to Friends of that Meeting to Exhort them to keep in the pure heavenly Love which brings into and keeps in the true Unity And that which I writ was thus Dear Friends and Brethren in Christ Jesus WHom the Lord by his Eternal Arm and Power hath preserved to this day all walk in the Power and Spirit of God that is over all in Love and Vnity For Love overcomes and builds up and unites all the Members of Christ to him the Head for Love keeps out of all strife and is of God And Love and Charity never fails but keeps the Mind above all outward things or strife about outward things and is that which overcomes Evil and casts out all false Fears And it is of God and unites all the hearts of his People together in the heavenly Joy Concord and Unity The God of Love preserve you all and settle and establish you in Christ Jesus your Life and Salvation in whom ye have all Peace with God And so Walk in him that ye may be ordered in his peaceable heavenly Wisdom to the Glory of God and the Comfort one of another
the Law And I opened the Inward State to them and the Outward State and they fell into a feirce Contention and so parted But the Lord's Power got Ground Then I heard of a great Meeting to be at Leicester for a Dispute Leicester wherein both Presbyterians Independents Baptists and Common-Prayer-Men were said to be all concerned The Meeting was in a Steeple-house and thither I was moved by the Lord God to go and be amongst them 1648. Leicester And I heard their Discourse and Reasonings some being in Pews and the Priest in the Pulpit abundance of People being gathered together At last one Woman asked a Question out of Peter What that Birth was viz. A being born again of Incorruptible Seed by the Word of God that liveth and abideth for ever And the Priest said to her I permit not a Woman to speak in the Church though he had before given liberty for any to speak Whereupon I was wrapt up as in a Rapture in the Lord's Power and I stepped up in a Place and asked the Priest Dost thou call this Place the Steeple-house a Church Or dost thou call this mixt Multitude a Church For the Woman asking a Question he ought to have answered it having given liberty for any to speak But he did not answer me neither but asked me What a Church was I told him The Church was the Pillar and Ground of Truth made up of living Stones living Members a spiritual Houshold which Christ was the Head of But he was not the Head of a mixt Multitude or of an old House made up of Lime Stones and Wood This set them all on Fire The Priest came down out of his Pulpit and others out of their Pews and the Dispute there was marr'd But I went to a great Inn and there disputed the thing with the Priests and Professors of all sorts and they were all on a Fire But I maintained the true Church and the true Head thereof over the Heads of them all till they all gave out and fled away And there was one Man that seemed loving and appeared for a while to join with me but he soon turned against me and joined with a Priest in pleading for Infant 's Baptism tho' he himself had been a Baptist before And so left me alone Howbeit there were several Convinced that day and the Woman that asked the Question aforesaid was Convinced and her Family And the Lord's Power and Glory shined over all Nottingham-shire After this I returned into Nottingham-shire again and went into the Vale of Beavor And as I went I preached Repentance to the People Vale of Beavor And there were many Convinced in the Vale of Beavor in many Towns for I stayed some Weeks amongst them And one Morning as I was sitting by the Fire a great Cloud came over me and a Temptation beset me And I sate still And it was said All things come by Nature And the Elements and Stars came over me so that I was in a manner quite clouded with it But inasmuch as I sate still and said nothing the People of the House perceived nothing And as I sate still under it and let it alone a living Hope arose in me and a true Voice arose in me which said There is a living God who made all things And immediately the Cloud and Temptation vanished away and Life rose over it all and my Heart was glad and I praised the living God And after some time I met with some People that had such a Notion That there was no God but that all things came by Nature And I had great Dispute with them and overturned them and made some of them Confess that there was a Living God Then I saw that it was good that I had gone through that Exercise And we had great Meetings in those Parts Nottingham-shire for the Power of the Lord broke through in that side of the Country And returning into Nottingham-shire I found there a Company of shattered Baptists and Others 1648. Nottingham-shire Mansfield Darbyshire Eton. and the Lord's Power wrought mightily and gathered many of them Then afterwards I went to Mansfield and there-a-way where the Lord's Power was wonderfully manifested both at Mansfield and other Towns thereabouts And in Darby-shire the mighty Power of God wrought in a wonderful manner At Eton a Town near Darby there was a Meeting of Friends where there was such a mighty Power of God that they were greatly Shaken and many Mouths were opened in the Power of the Lord God And many were moved by the Lord to go to Steeple-houses to the Priests and to the People to declare the Everlasting Truth unto them And at a certain time when I was at Mansfield Mansfield there was a Sitting of the Justices about hiring of Servants and it was upon me from the Lord to go and speak to the Justices That they should not oppress the Servants in their Wages So I walked towards the Inn where they sate but finding a Company of Fidlers there I did not go in but thought to come in the Morning when I might have a more serious Opportunity to discourse them not thinking that a seasonable time But when I came again in the Morning they were gone and I was struck even blind that I could not see And I inquired of the Inn-keeper where the Justices were to sit that day And he told me At a Town eight Miles off And my Sight began to come to me again and I went and Ran thitherward as fast as I could And when I was come to the House where they were and many Servants with them I exhorted the Justices Not to oppress the Servants in their Wages but to do that which was Right and Just to them And I exhorted the Servants To do their Duties and serve honestly c. And they all received my Exhortation kindly for I was moved of the Lord therein Moreover I was moved to go to several Courts and Steeple-houses at Mansfield and other Places to warn them to leave off Oppression and Oaths and to turn from Deceit and to turn to the Lord and do justly Particularly at Mansfield after I had been at a Court there I was moved to go and speak to one of the Wicked'st Men in the Country one who was a Common Drunkard a noted Whore-master and a Rime-maker And I reproved him in the dread of the Mighty God for his evil Courses And when I had done Speaking and left him he came after me and told me That he was so smitten when I spake to him that he had scarce any Strength left in him So this Man was Convinced and turned from his Wickedness and remained an honest sober Man to the Astonishment of the People who had known him before Thus the Work of the Lord went forward and many were turned from the Darkness to the Light within the compass of these three Years 1646 1647 and 1648. And divers Meetings of
Friends in several Places were then gathered to Gods Teaching by his Light Spirit and Power For the Lord's Power brake forth daily more and more wonderfullly Now was I come up in Spirit through the flaming Sword into the Paradise of God All things were New and all the Creation gave another Smell unto me than before beyond what Words can utter I knew nothing 1648. Mansfield but Pureness and Innocency and Righteousness being renewed up into the Image of God by Christ Jesus so that I say I was come up to the State of Adam which he was in before he fell The Creation was opened to me And it was shewed me how all things had their Names given them according to their Nature and Vertue And I was at a stand in my Mind whether I should practise Physick for the good of Mankind seeing the Nature and Vertues of the Creatures were so opened to me by the Lord. But I was immediately taken up in Spirit to see into another or more stedfast State than Adam's in Innocency even into a State in Christ Jesus that should never fall And the Lord shewed me that such as were faithful to him in the Power and Light of Christ should come up into that State in which Adam was before he fell In which the admirable Works of the Creation and the Vertues thereof may be known through the Openings of that divine Word of Wisdom and Power by which they were made Great things did the Lord lead me into and wonderful Depths were opened unto me beyond what can by Words be declared But as People come into subjection to the Spirit of God and grow up in the Image and Power of the Almighty they may receive the Word of Wisdom that opens all things and come to know the hidden Vnity in the Eternal Being Thus traveled I on in the Lord's Service as the Lord led me And when I came to Nottingham Notingham Leicestershire Clauson Vale of Beavor the mighty Power of God was there among Friends From thence I went to Clauson in Leicestershire in the Vale of Beavor and the mighty Power of God was there also in several Towns and Villages where Friends were gathered While I was there the Lord opened to me Three Things relating to those Three great Professions in the World Physick Divinity so called and Law And he shewed me that the Physicians and Doctors of Physick were out of the Wisdom of God by which the Creatures were made and so knew not the Vertues of the Creatures because they were out of the Word of Wisdom by which they were made And he shewed me that the Priests were out of the true Faith which Christ is the Author of the Faith which purifies and gives Victory and brings People to have Access to God by which they please God Which Mystery of Faith is held in a pure Conscience He shewed me also that the Lawyers were out of the Equity and out of the true Justice and out of the Law of God which went over the first Transgression and over all Sin and answered the Spirit of God that was grieved and transgressed in Man And that these three the Physicians the Priests and the Lawyers ruled the World out of the Wisdom out of the Faith and out of the Equity and Law of God the one pretending the Cure of the Body the other the Cure of the Soul and the third the Property of the People But I saw they were all out out of the Wisdom out of the Faith out of the Equity and perfect Law of God And as the Lord opened these things unto me I felt his Power went forth over all by which all might be Reformed if they would receive and bow unto it The Priests might be Reformed and brought into the true Faith which was the Gift of God The Lawyers might be Reformed and brought into the Law of God 1648. Vale of Beavor which answers that of God that is transgressed in every one and brings to love one's Neighbour as himself This lets Man see If he wrongs his Neighbour he wrongs himself and this teaches him To do unto others as he would they should do unto him The Physicians might be Reformed and brought into the Wisdom of God by whick all things were made and Created that they might receive a right Knowledge of the Creatures and understand the Virtues of them which the Word of Wisdom by which they were made and are upheld hath given them Abundance was opened concerning these things how all lay out of the Wisdom of God and out of the Righteousness and Holiness that Man at the first was made in But as all believe in the Light and walk in the Light which Christ hath enlightned every Man that cometh into the World withal and so become Children of the Light and of the Day of Christ in his Day all things are seen Visible and Invisible by the Divine Light of Christ the Spiritual Heavenly Man by whom all things were made and Created Then I saw concerning the Priests that although they stood in the Deceit and acted by the dark Power which both they and their People were kept under yet they were not the greatest Deceivers spoken of in the Scriptures For these were not come so far as many of them had come But the Lord opened to me who the greatest Deceivers were and how far they might come even such as came as far as Cain to hear the Voice of God and such as came out of Egypt and through the Red Sea and to praise God on the Banks of the Sea-shore such as could speak by Experience of God's Miracles and Wonders such as were come as far as Corah and Dathan and their Company such as came as far as Balaam who could speak the Word of the Lord who heard his Voice and knew it and knew his Spirit and could see the Star of Jacob and the goodliness of Israel's Tent the Second Birth which no Enchantment could prevail against These that could speak so much of their Experiences of God and yet turned from the Spirit and the Word and went into the Gainsaying These were and would be the great Deceivers far beyond the Priests Likewise among the Christians such as should preach in Christ's Name and should work Miracles cast out Devils and go as far as a Cain a Core and a Balaam in the Gospel-times These were and would be the great Deceivers they that could speak some Experiences of Christ and God but lived not in the Life These were they that led the World after them who got the Form of Godliness but denyed the Power who inwardly ravened from the Spirit and brought People into the Form but persecuted them that were in the Power as Cain did and ran greedily after the Error of Balaam through Covetousness loving the Wages of Unrighteousness as Balaam did These Followers of Cain Core and Balaam have brought the World since the Apostles Days to be like a Sea