and of the most Repute for Religion and many of them of good Capacity Substance and Account among Men. And also some among them wanted not for Parts Learning or Estate though then as of Old not many Wise or Noble c. were called or at least received the Heavenly Call because of the Cross that attended the Profession of it in Sincerity But neither do Parts or Learning make Men the better Christians though the better Orators and Disputants and it is the Ignorance of People about the Divine Gift that causes that vulgar and mischievous mistake Theory and Practice Speculation and Enjoyment Words and Life are two things Oh 't is the Penitent the Reformed the Lowly the Watchful the Self-denying and Holy Soul that is the Christian And that Frame is the Fruit and Work of the Spirit which is the Life of Jesus Whose Life though hid in the fulness of it in God the Father is shed abroad in the Hearts of them that truly Believe according to their Capacity Oh that People did but know this to Cleanse them to Circumcise them to Quicken them and to make them New Creatures indeed Recreated or Regenerated after Christ Jesus unto good Works that they might live to God and not to themselves and offer up living Prayers and living Praises to the living God through his own living Spirit in which he is only to be Worshipped in this Gospel Day Oh that they that read me could but feel me For my Heart is affected with this Merciful Visitation of the Father of Lights and Spirits to this poor Nation and the whole World through the same Testimony Why should the Inhabitants thereof reject it Why should they lose the Blessed Benefit of it Why should they not turn to the Lord with all their Hearts and say from the Heart Speak Lord for now thy poor Servants hear Oh that thy Will may be done thy Great thy Good and Holy Will in Earth as it is in Heaven Do it in us do it upon us do what thou wilt with us for we are thine and desire to glorifie thee our Creator both for that and because thou art our Redeemer for thou art redeeming us from the Earth from the Vanities and Pollutions of it to be a Peculiar People unto thee Oh this were a Brave Day for England if so she could say in Truth But alas the Case is otherwise for which some of thine Inhabitants O Land of my Nativity have mourned over thee with bitter Wailing and Lamentation Their Heads have been indeed as Waters and their Eyes as Fountains of Tears because of thy Transgression and Stiffneckedness because thou wilt not Hear and Fear and Return to the Rock even thy Rock O England from whence thou wert Hewen But be thou warned O Land of great Profession to receive him into thy Heart Behold at That Door it is he hath stood so long Knocking but thou wilt yet have none of him Oh be thou awakened lest Jerusalem's Judgments do swiftly overtake thee because of Jerusalem's Sins that abound in thee For she abounded in Formality but made void the Weighty things of God's Law as thou daily doest She withstood the Son of God in the Flesh and thou resistest the Son of God in the Spirit He would have gathered her as an Hen gathereth her Chickens under her Wings and she would not so would he have gathered thee out of thy Life-less Profession and have brought thee to inherit Substance to have known his Power and Kingdom For which he often knockt within by his Grace and Spirit and without by his Servants and Witnesses But thou wouldest not be gathered But on the Contrary as Jerusalem of old Persecuted the Manifestation of the Son of God in the Flesh and Crucified him and Whipt and Imprisoned his Servants so hast thou O Land Crucified to thy self afresh the Lord of Life and Glory and done despite to his Spirit of Grace slighting the Fatherly Visitation and Persecuting the blessed Dispensers of it by thy Laws and Magistrates Though they have Early and Late pleaded with thee in the Power and Spirit of the Lord in Love and Meekness that thou mightest know the Lord and serve him and become the Glory of all Lands But thou hast Evilly entreated and requited them Thou hast set at nought all their Counsel and would have none of their Reproof as thou shouldest have done Their Appearance was too Straight and their Qualifications were too Mean for thee to receive them like the Jews of Old that cried Is not this the Carpenters Son and are not his Brethren among us which of the Scribes of the Learned the Orthodox believe in him Prophesying their Fall in a Year or two and making and executing of severe Laws to bring it to pass Endeavouring to terrifie them out of their Holy way or destroy them for abiding Faithful to it But thou hast seen how many Governments that rise against them and determined their Downfal have been overturned and extinguished and that they are still preserved and become a great and a considerable People among the Middle sort of thy numerous Inhabitants And notwithstanding the many difficulties Without and Within which they have Laboured under since the Lord God Eternal first gathered them they are an Encreasing People the Lord still adding unto them in divers Parts such as shall be saved if they persevere to the End And to Thee O England were they and are they lifted up as a Standard and as a City set upon a Hill and to the Nations round about thee that in their Light thou may'st come to see Light even in Christ Jesus the Light of the World and therefore thy Light and Life too if thou wouldst but turn from thy many evil ways and receive and obey it For in the Light of the Lamb must the Nations of them that are saved walk as the Scripture Testifies Remember O Nation of great Profession How the Lord has waited upon thee since the Dawnings of Reformation and the many Mercies and Judgments by which he has pleaded with Thee and Awake and Arise out of thy deep Sleep and yet hear his Word in thy Heart that thou may'st live Let not this thy day of Visitation pass over thy Head nor neglect thou so great Salvation as is This which is come to thy House Oh England For why should'st thou die Oh Land that God desires to Bless Be assured it is He that has been in the mid'st of This People in the midst of Thee and not a Delusion as thy mistaken Teachers have made Thee believe And this thou shalt find by their Marks and Fruits if thou wilt consider them in the Spirit of Moderation CHAP. III. Of the Qualifications of their Ministry Eleven Marks that it is Christian I. THey were changed Men themselves before they went about to change others Their Hearts were Rent as well as their Garments and they knew the Power and Work of God upon them And this was seen by
God as you should do you must come to the means he has ordained and given for that purpose Some seek it in Books some in Learned Men but what they look for is in themselves though not of themselves but they overlook it The Voice is too still the Seed too small and the Light shineth in Darkness They are abroad and so cannot divide the Spoil But the Woman that lost her Silver found it at Home after she had lighted her Candle and swept her House Do you so too and you shall find what Pilate wanted to know viz. Truth Truth in the Inward Parts so valuable in the sight of God The light of Christ within who is the Light of the World and so a Light to you that tells you the Truth of your Condition leads all that take heed unto it out of Darkness into God's marvellous Light For Light grows upon the Obedient It is sown for the Righteous and their way is a shining Light that shines forth more and more to the perfect day Wherefore O Friends Turn in Turn in I beseech you Where is the Poison There is the Antidote There you want Christ and There you must find him and blessed be God There you may find him Seek and you shall find I testifie for God But then you must seek aright with your whole Heart as Men that seek for their Lives yea for their Eternal Lives Diligently Humbly Patiently as those that can taste no Pleasure Comfort or Satisfaction in any thing else unless you find him whom your Souls want and desire to know and love above all O it is a Travail a Spiritual Travail Let the Carnal Profane World think and say as it will And through This Path you must walk to the City of God that has Eternal Foundations if ever you will come there Well! And what does this blessed Light do for you Why 1. It sets all your Sins in order before you It detects the Spirit of this World in all its Baits and Allurements and shews how Man came to fall from God and the fallen Estate he is in 2. It begets a Sense and Sorrow in such as believe in it for this fearful Lapse You will then see him Distinctly whom you have Pierced and all the Blows and Wounds you have given him by your Disobedience and how you have made him to serve with your Sins and you will Weep and Mourn for it and your Sorrow will be a Godly Sorrow 3. After this it will bring you to the Holy Watch to take Care that you do so no more and that the Enemy surprise you not again Then Thoughts as well as Words and Works will come to Judgment which is the way of Holiness in which the Redeemed of the Lord do walk Here you will come to love God above all and your Neighbours as your selves Nothing Hurts Nothing Harms Nothing makes Afraid on this Holy Mountain Now you come to be Christ's indeed for you are his in Nature and Spirit and not your own And when you are Thus Christ's then Christ is yours and not before And here Communion with the Father and with the Son you will know and the Efficacy of the Blood of Cleansing even the Blood of Jesus Christ that Immaculate Lamb which speaketh better things than the Blood of Abel and which cleanseth from all Sin the Consciences of those that through the living Faith come to be sprinkled with it from dead Works to serve the living God To Conclude Behold the Testimony and Doctrine of the People called Quakers Behold their Practice and Discipline And behold the blessed Man and Men at least many of them that were sent of God in this Excellent Work and Service All which is more particularly expressed in the Annals of that Man of God Which I do heartily recommend to my Readers most serious Perusal and beseech Almighty God that his Blessing may go along with both to the Convincement of many as yet Strangers to this Holy Dispensation and also to the Edification of the Church of God in General Who for his manifold and repeated Mercies and Blessings to his People in this day of his great Love is worthy ever to have the Glory Honour Thanksgiving and Renown and be it rendred and ascribed with Fear and Reverence through him in whom he is well pleased his Beloved Son and Lamb our Light and Life that sits with him upon the Throne World without End Amen Says One that God has long since Mercifully favoured with his Fatherly Visitation and who was not Disobedient to the Heavenly Vision and Call to whom the Way of Truth is more Lovely and Precious than ever and that knowing the Beauty and Benefit of it above all Worldly Treasure has chosen it for his Chiefest Joy and therefore recommends it to thy Love and Choice because he is with great Sincerity and Affection thy Soul's Friend William Penn. The END
Blood nor of the Will of the Flesh nor of the Will of Man but of God A most close and comprehensive Passage to this occasion You exactly and peculiarly answer to those professing Jews in that you bear the Name of God's People by being the Children and wearing of the Form of God's People And He by his Light in you may be very well said to come to his own and if you obey it not but turn your Back upon it and walk after the Vanities of your Minds you will be of Those that receive him not which I pray God may never be your Case and Judgment But that you may be thoroughly sensible of the many and great Obligations you lie under to the Lord for his Love and to your Parents for their Care And with all your Heart and all your Soul and all your Strength turn to the Lord to his Gift and Spirit in you and hear his Voice and obey it that you may Seal to the Testimony of your Fathers by the Truth and Evidence of your own Experience that your Childrens Children may bless you and the Lord for you as those that delivered a faithful Example as well as Record of the Truth of God unto them So will the Gray Hairs of your Dear Parents yet alive go down to the Grave with Joy to see you the posterity of Truth as well as theirs and that not only their Natures but Spirit shall live in you when they are gone I shall conclude this Account with a few Words to those that are not of our Communion into whose hands this may come especially those of our own Nation Friends As you are the Sons and Daughters of Adam and my Brethren after the Flesh often and earnest have been my Desires and Prayers to God on your behalf that you may come to know your Creator to be your Redeemer and Restorer to the Holy Image that through Sin you have lost by the power and Spirit of his Son Jesus Christ whom he hath given for the Light and Life of the World And Oh that you who are called Christians would receive him into your Heart For there it is you want him and at that Door he stands knocking that you might let him in but you do not open to him You are full of other Guests so that a Manger is his Lot among you Now as well as of Old Yet you are full of Profession as were the Jews when he came among them who knew him not but rejected and evilly intreated him So that if you come not to the Possession and Experience of what you profess all your Formality in Religion will stand you in no stead in the Day of God's Judgment I beseech you ponder with your selves your Eternal Condition and see what Title what Ground and Foundation you have for your Christianity If more than a Profession and an Historical Belief of the Gospel Have you known the Baptism of Fire and the Holy Ghost and the Fan of Christ that winnows away the Chaff in your minds the Carnal Lusts and Affections That Divine Leven of the Kingdom that being received Levens the whole Lump of Man sanctifying him throughout in Body Soul and Spirit If this be not the Ground of your Confidence you are in a Miserable Estate You will say perhaps that though you are Sinners and live in the daily Commission of Sin and are not Sanctified as I have been speaking yet you have Faith in Christ who has born the Curse for you and in him you are Compleat by Faith his Righteousness being imputed to you But my Friends let me intreat you not to deceive your selves in so Important a Point as is that of your Immortal Souls If you have true Faith in Christ your Faith will make you Clean it will Sanctifie you For the Saints Faith was their Victory of old By this they overcame Sin within and Sinful Men without And if thou art in Christ thou walkest not after the Flesh but after the Spirit whose Fruits are Manifest Yea thou art a New Creature New Made New Fashioned after God's Will and Mould Old things are done away and behold all things are become New New Love Desires Will Affections and Practices It is not any longer Thou that livest Thou Disobedient Carnal Worldly One but it is Christ that liveth in thee and to live is Christ and to die is thy Eternal Gain Because thou art assured That thy Corruptible shall put on Incorruption and thy Mortal Immortality and that thou hast a Glorious House Eternal in the Heavens that will never wax Old or pass away All this follows being in Christ as Heat follows Fire and Light the Sun Therefore have a Care how you presume to Rely upon such a Notion as that you are in Christ whilst in your old fallen Nature For what Communion hath Light with Darkness or Christ with Beial Hear what the beloved Disciple tells you If we say we have fellowship with God and walk in Darkness we lie and do not the Truth That is if we go on in a Sinful way are Captivated by our Carnal Affections and are not Converted to God we walk in Darkness and cannot possibly in that state have any Fellowship with God Christ Cloths them with his Righteousness that receive his Grace in their Hearts and deny themselves and take up his Cross daily and follow him Christ's Righteousness makes Men inwardly Holy of Holy Minds Wills and Practices It is never the less Christs because we have it for it is ours not by Nature but by Faith and Adoption It is the Gift of God But still tho' not ours as of or from our selves for in that Sense it is Christ's for it is of and from him yet it is ours and must be ours in Possession Efficacy and Enjoyment to do us any good or Christ's Righteousness will profit us nothing It was after this manner that he was made to the Primitive Christians Righteousness Sanctification Justification and Redemption and if ever you will have the Comfort Kernel and Marrow of the Christian Religion thus you must come to learn and obtain it Now my Friends by what you have Read and will Read in what Follows you may perceive that God has visited a Poor People among you with this saving Knowledge and Testimony Whom he has upheld and encreased to this Day notwithstanding the fierce opposition they have met withal Despise not the Meanness of this Appearance It was and yet is we know a day of small things and of small Account with too many and many hard and ill Names are given to it But it is of God it came from him because it leads to him This we know but we cannot make another know it as we know it unless he will take the same way to know it that we took The World talks of God but what do they do They pray for Power but reject the Principle in which it is If you would know God and Worship and serve
into profitable Parsonages too much and outlived and contradicted their own Principles And which was yet worse turned some of them absolute Persecutors of other Men for God's Sake that but so lately came themselves out of the Furnace which drove many a step farther and that was into the Water Another Baptism as believing they were not Scripturally Baptized and hoping to find that Presence and Power of God in submitting to this Watery Ordinance which they desired and wanted These People made also Profession of Neglecting if not Renouncing and Censuring not only the Necessity but Use of all Humane Learning as to the Ministry and all other Qualifications to it besides the Helps and Gifts of the Spirit of God and those natural and common to Men. And for a time they seemed like John of Old a Burning and a Shining Light to other Societies They were very Diligent Plain and Serious strong in Scripture and bold in Profession bearing much Reproach and Contradiction But that which others fell by proved their Snare For worldly Power spoiled them too who had enough of it to try them what they would do if they had had more And they rested also too much upon their Watry Dispensation instead of passing on more fully to that of the Fire and Holy Ghost which was his Baptism who came with a Fan in his Hand that he might throughly and not in part only purge his Floor and take away the Dross and the Tin of his People and make a Man finer than Gold Withall they grew High Rough and Self-righteous opposing further attainment Too much forgetting the Day of their Infancy and Littleness which gave them something of a real Beauty in so much that many left them and all visible Churches and Societies and Wandred up and down as Sheep without a Shepherd and as Doves without their Mates seeking their Beloved but could not find Him as their Souls desired to know Him whom their Souls loved above their chiefest Joy These People were called Seekers by some and the Family of Love by others because as they came to the knowledge of one another they sometimes met together not formally to Pray or Preach at appointed times or Places in their own Wills as in times past they were accustomed to do but waited together in Silence and as any thing rose in any one of their Minds that they thought Savoured of a Divine Spring they sometimes Spoke But so it was that some of them not keeping in Humility and in the Fear of God after the Abundance of Revelation were exalted above Measure and for want of staying their Minds in an humble Dependance upon him that opened their Understandings to see great things in his Law they ran out in their own Imaginations and mixing them with those Divine Openings brought forth a Monstrous Birth to the Scandal of those that feared God and waited daily in the Temple not made with Hands for the Consolation of Israel the Jew inward and Circumcision in Spirit This People obtained the Name of Ranters from their extravagant Discourses and Practices For they interpreted Christ's fullfilling of the Law for us to be a discharging of us from any Obligation and Duty the Law required of us instead of the Condemnation of the Law for sins past upon Faith and Repentance And that now it was no Sin to do that which before it was a Sin to commit the slavish Fear of the Law being taken off by Christ and all things good that Man did if he did but do them with the Mind and Perswasion that it was so Insomuch that divers fell into Gross and Enormous Practices pretending in excuse thereof that they could without Evil commit the same Act which was Sin in another to do thereby distinguishing between the Action and the Evil of it by the Direction of the Mind and Intention in the doing of it Which was to make Sin super-abound by the aboundings of Grace and to turn from the Grace of God into Wantonness a securer way of Sinning than before As if Christ came not to save us from our Sins but in our Sins not to take away Sin but that we might Sin more freely at his Cost and with less Danger to our selves I say this ensnared Divers and brought them to an utter and lamentable Loss as to their Eternal State and they grew very troublesome to the better sort of People and furnished the looser with an occasion to Prophane CHAP. II. Of the Rise of this People their Fundamental Principle and Doctrine and Practice in twelve Points resulting from it Their Progress and Sufferings An Expostulation with England thereupon IT was about that very time as you may see in G. F's Annals that the Eternal Wise and Good God was pleased in his infinite Love to Honour and Visit this benighted and bewildred Nation with his Glorious Day-spring from on High yea with a most sure and certain sound of the Word of Light and Life through the Testimony of a Chosen Vessel to an effectual and blessed purpose can many thousands say Glory be to the Name of the Lord for ever For as it reached the Conscience and broke the Heart and brought many to a Sense and Search so that which People had been vainly seeking without with much Pains and Cost they by this Ministry found within where it was they wanted what they sought for viz. The right way to Peace with God For they were directed to the Light of Jesus Christ within them as the Seed and Leaven of the Kingdom of God Near All because in All and God's Talent to All. A Faithful and True Witness and Just Monitor in every Bosom The Gift and Grace of God to Life and Salvation that appears to all though few regard it This the Traditional Christian conceited of himself and strong in his own Will and Righteousness and overcome with blind Zeal and Passion either despised as a Low and Common thing or opposed as a Novelty under many hard Names and opprobrious Terms denying in his ignorant and angry Mind any fresh Manifestation of God's Power and Spirit in Man in these days though never more needed to make true Christians Not unlike those Jews of Old that rejected the Son of God at the very same time that they blindly professed to wait for the Messiah to come because alas he appeared not among them according to their Carnal Mind and Expectation This brought forth many abusive Books which filled the greater sort with Envy and lesser with Rage and made the way and progress of this Blessed Testimony Straight and Narrow indeed to those that received it However God owned his own Work and this Testimony did effectually Reach Gather Comfort and Establish the Weary and Heavy Laden the Hungry and Thirsty the Poor and Needy the Mournful and Sick of many Maladies that had spent all upon Physicians of no Value and waited for Relief from Heaven Help only from above Seeing upon a serious Tryal of all things
it which I shall now mention in their Natural and Experimental Order First Repentance from dead Works to serve the Living God Which comprehends three Operations First a sight of Sin Secondly A Sence and Godly Sorrow for Sin Thirdly An Amendment for the Time to come This was the Repentance they preached and pressed and a Natural result from the Principle they turned all People unto For of Light came Sight and of Sight came Sense and Sorrow and of Sense and Sorrow came Amendment of Life Which Doctrine of Repentance leads to Justification that is Forgiveness of the Sins that are past through Christ the alone Propitiation and the Sanctification or Purgation of the Soul from the defiling Nature and Habits of Sin Present by the Spirit of Christ in the Soul Which is Justification in the compleat Sence of that Word Comprehending both justification from the Guilt of the Sins that are past as if they had never been committed through the Love and Mercy of God in Christ Jesus and the Creatures being made inwardly just through the Cleansing and Sanctfiying Power and Spirit of Christ revealed in the Soul which is commonly called Sanctification But that none can come to know Christ to be their Sacrifice that Reject him as their Sanctifier The End of his coming being to save his People from the Nature and Defilement as well as Guilt of Sin and that therefore those that resist his Light and Spirit make his coming an offering of none effect to them From hence sprang a Second Doctrine they were led to declare as the Mark of the Price of the High Calling to all true Christians viz. Perfection from Sin according to the Scriptures of truth which testifie it to be the End of Christ's coming and the Nature of his Kingdom and for which his Spirit was and is given viz. to be Perfect as our Heavenly Father is Perfect and Holy because God is Holy And this the Apostles laboured for that the Christians should be Sanctified Through-out in Body Soul and Spirit But they never held a Perfection in Wisdom and Glory in this Life or from Natural Infirmities or Death as some have with a weak or ill mind imagined and insinuated against them This they called a Redeemed State Regeneration or the New-Birth Teaching every where according to their Foundation that without this Work were known there was no inheriting the Kingdom of God Thirdly This leads to an acknowledgment of Eternal Rewards and Punishments as they have good Reason for else of all People certainly they must be the most Miserable Who for about Forty Years have been exceeding great Sufferers for their Profession and in some Cases treated worse than the worst of Men yea as the Refuse and Off-scowering of all things This was the Purport of their Doctrine and Ministry which for the most part is what other Professors of Christianity pretend to hold in Words and Forms but not in the Power of Godliness which generally speaking has been long lost by Mens departing from that Principle and Seed of Life that is in Man and which Man has not regarded but lost the Sense of and in and by which he can only be quickned in his Mind to serve the living God in Newness of Life For as the Life of Religion was lost and the generality lived and Worshipped God after their own Wills and not after the Will of God nor the mind of Christ which stood in the Works and Fruits of the Holy Spirit so that which they prest was not Notion but Experience no Formality but Godliness as being sensible in themselves through the Work of God's Righteous Judgments that without Holiness no Man should ever see the Lord with Comfort Besides these General Doctrines as the larger Branches there sprang forth several particular Doctrines that did exemplifie and further explain the Truth and Efficacy of the General Doctrine before observed in their Lives and Examples As I. Communion and loving one another This is a noted Mark in the Mouth of all sorts of People concerning them They will meet They will help and stick one to another Whence it is common to hear some say Look how the Quakers love and take care of one another Others less Moderate will say The Quakers love none but themselves And if loving one another and having an Intimate Communion in Religion and constant care to meet to Worship God and help one another be any Mark of Primitive Christianity they had it Blessed be the Lord in an ample manner II. To love Enemies This they both Taught and Practised For they did not only refuse to be revenged for Injuries done them and condemned it as of an Unchristian Spirit but they did freely Forgive yea Help and Relieve those that had been Cruel to them when it was in their Power to have been even with them Of which many and singular Instances might be given Endeavouring through Faith and Patience to overcome all Injustice and Oppression and Preaching this Doctrine as Christian for others to follow III. Another was The Sufficiency of Truth speaking according to Christ's own form of sound Words of Yea Yea and Nay Nay among Christians without Swearing both from Christ's express Prohibition to Swear at all Mat. 5. and for that they being under the Tye and Bond of Truth in themselves there was no Necessity for an Oath and it would be a Reproach to their Christian Veracity to Assure their Truth by such an Extraordinary way of Speaking simple and uncompounded Answers as Yea and Nay without Asseverations Attestations or Super-natural Vouchers being most suitable to Evangelical Righteousness But offering at the same time to be punisht to the full for False-Speaking as others for Perjury if ever guilty of it And hereby they exclude with all True all False and Prophane Swearing for which the Land did and doth Mourn and the great God was and is not a little offended with it IV. Not Fighting but Suffering is another Testimony peculiar to this People They affirm that Christianity teacheth People To beat their Swords into Plough-Shares and their Spears into Pruning-Hooks and to learn War no more that so the Wolf may lie down with the Lamb and the Lion with the Calf and nothing that destroys be entertained in the Hearts of People Exhorting them to employ their Zeal against Sin and turn their Anger against Satan and no longer War one against another because all Wars and Fightings come of Mens own Hearts Lusts according to the Apostle James and not of the Meek Spirit of Christ Jesus who is Captain of another Warfare and which is carried on with other Weapons Thus as Truth speaking succeeded Swearing so Faith and Patience succeeded Fighting in the Doctrine and Practice of this People Nor ought they for this to be obnoxious to Civil Government since if they cannot Fight for it neither can they Fight against it which is no mean security to any State Nor is it reasonable that People should be blamed
the great Alteration it made and their stricter Course of Life and more Godly Conversation that immediately followed upon it II. They went not forth or Preached in their own Time or Will but in the Will of God and Spoke not their own studied Matter but as they were opened and moved of his Spirit with which they were well acquainted in their own Conversion Which cannot be expresed to Carnal Men so as to give them any intelligible account for to such it is as Christ said like the blowing of the Wind which no man knows whence it cometh or whither it goeth Yet this Proof and Seal went along with their Ministry that many were turned from their Life-less Professions and the Evil of their Ways to an inward and experimental knowledge of God and an Holy Life as thousands can witness And as they Freely received what they had to say from the Lord so they Freely administer'd it to others III. The Bent and Stress of their Ministry was Conversion to God Regeneration and Holiness Not Schemes of Doctrines and Verbal Creeds or new Forms of Worship But a leaving off in Religion the Superfluous and reducing the Ceremonious and Formal part and pressing earnestly the Substantial the Necessary and Profitable part to the Soul as all upon a serious Reflection must and do accknowledge IV. They directed People to a Principle in themselves tho' not of themselves by which all that they asserted Preached and Exhorted others to might be wrought in them and known to them through Experience to be true Which is a high and distinguishing Mark of the Truth of their Ministry both that they knew what they said and were not afraid of coming to the Test For as they were bold from Certainty so they required Conformity upon no Humane Authority but upon Conviction and the Conviction of This Principle which they asserted was in them that they Preached unto and unto that they directed them that they might examine and prove the Reality of those things which they had affirmed of it as to its Manifestation and Work in Man And this is more than the many Ministries in the World pretended to They declare of Religion say many things true in words of God Christ and the Spirit of Holiness and Heaven that all Men should Repent and mend their Lives or they will go to Hell c. But which of them all pretend to speak of their own Knowledge and Experience Or ever directed Men to a Divine Principle or Agent placed of God in Man to help him and how to know it and wait to feel its Power to work that good and acceptable Will of God in them Some of them indeed have Spoke of the Spirit and the Operations of it to Sanctification and Performance of Worship to God but Where and How to find it and wait in it to perform our duty to God was yet as a Mystery to be declared by this further degree of Reformation So that this People did not only in words more than equally press Repentance Conversion and Holiness but did it knowingly and experimentally and directed those to whom they preach'd to a sufficient Principle and told them where it was and by what Tokens they might know it and which way they might experience the Power and Efficacy of it to their Soul's Happiness Which is more than Theory and Speculation upon which most other Ministries depend For here is certainty a Bottom upon which Man may boldly appear before God in the great Day of Account V. They reached to the Inward State and Condition of People which is an Evidence of the Virtue of their Principle and of their Ministring from it and not from their own Imaginations Glosses or Comments upon Scripture For nothing reaches the Heart but what is from the Heart or pierces the Conscience but what comes from a living Conscience Insomuch as it hath often happened where People have under Secrecy revealed their State or condition to some choice Friends for Advice or Ease they have been so particularly directed in the Ministry of this People that they have challenged their Friends with discovering their Secrets and telling the Preachers their Cases to whom a word had not been spoken Yea the very Thoughts and Purposes of the hearts of many have been so plainly detected that they have like Nathanael cryed out of this inward appearance of Christ Thou art the Son of God Thou art the King of Israel And those that have embraced this Divine Principle have found this Mark of its Truth and Divinity that the Woman of Samaria did of Christ when in the Flesh to be the Messiah viz. It had told them all that ever they had done showed them their insides the most inward secrets of their Hearts and laid Judgment to the Line and Righteousness to the Plummet of which Thousands can at this day give in their Witness So that nothing has been affirmed by this People of the Power and Virtue of this Heavenly Principle that such as have turned to it have not found true and more and that one half had not been told to them of what they have seen of the Power Purity Wisdom and Goodness of God therein VI. The Accomplishments with which this Principle fitted even some of the meanest of this People for their Work and Service Furnishing some of them with an Extraordinary Understanding in Divine Things and an admirable Fluency and Taking way of Expression which gave occasion to some to wonder saying of them as of their Master Is not this such a Mechanick's Son how came he by this Learning As from thence others took occasion to suspect and insinuate they were Jesuites in Disguise who have had the Reputation of Learned Men for an Age past though there was not the least ground of Truth for any such Reflection In that their Ministers are known the places of their Abode their Kindred and Education VII That they rise Low and Despised and Hated as the Primitive Christians did and not by the help of Worldly Wisdom or Power as former Reformations in part have done But in all things it may be said this People were brought forth in the Cross in a Contradiction to the Ways Worship Fashions and Customs of this World yea against Wind and Tide that so no Flesh might Glory before God VIII They could have no design to themselves in this Work thus to expose themselves to Scorn and Abuse to spend and be spent Leaving Wife and Children House and Land and all that can be accounted dear to Men with their lives in their Hands being daily in Jeopardy to declare this Primitive Message revived in their Spirits by the good Spirit and Power of God viz. That God is Light and in him is no darkness at all and that he has sent his Son a Light into the World to enlighten all Men in order to Salvation and that they that say they have Fellowship with God and are his Children and People and yet walk
the nearest and most exercising Nature and that by Night and by Day by Sea and by Land in this and in Foreign Countries And I can say I never saw him out of his Place or not a Match for every Service or Occasion For in all things he acquitted himself like a Man yea a strong Man a New and Heavenly-minded Man A Divine and a Naturalist and all of God Almighty's making I have been surprised at his Questions and Answers in Natural things That whilst he was Ignorant of useless and Sophistical Science he had in him the Grounds of useful and commendable Knowledge and cherisht it every where Civil beyond all Forms of Breeding in his Behaviour Very Temperate Eating Little and Sleeping Less though a Bulky Person Thus he Lived and Sojourned among us And as he lived so he died feeling the same Eternal Power that had raised and preserved him in his last Moments So full of Assurance was he that he Triumpht over Death and so even in his Spirit to the last as if Death were hardly worth Notice or a mention Recommending to some of us with him the Dispatch and Dispersion of an Epistle just before given forth by him to the Churches of Christ throughout the World and his own Books But above all Friends and of all Friends those in Ireland and America twice over Saying Mind poor Friends in Ireland and America And to some that came in and enquired how he found himself he answered Never heed the Lord's Power is over all Weakness and Death the Seed reigns Blessed be the Lord Which was about Four or Five Hours before his Departure out of this World He was at the great Meeting near Lombard-street on the First Day of the Week and it was the Third following about Ten at Night When he left us being at the House of H. Goldney in the same Court. In a good Old Age he went after having lived to see his Childrens Children to many Generations in the Truth He had the Comfort of a short Illness and the Blessing of a clear Sense to the last And we may truly say with a Man of God of Old that being Dead he yet Speaketh And though now absent in Body he is Present in Spirit Neither Time nor Place being able to interrupt the Communion of Saints or dissolve the Fellowships of the Spirits of the Just His Works praise him because they are to the praise of him that worked by him for which his Memorial is and shall be blessed I have done as to this part of my Preface when I have left this short Epitaph to his Name Many Sons have done virtuously in this Day but Dear George thou Excellest them All. CHAP. VI. Containing Five several Exhortations First General reminding this People of their Primitive Inâ—egrity and Simplicity Secondly in Particular to the Ministry Thirdly to the Young Convinced Fourthly to the Children of Friends Fifthly to those that are yet Strangers to this People and Way to whom this Book and That it was Presace to in its former Edition may come All the several Exhortations accommodated to their several States and Conditions that all may answer the end of God's love to them viz. God's Glory and their own Salvation AND now Friends you that profess to walk in the way that this Blessed Man was sent of God to turn us into suffer I beseech you the word of Exhortation as well Fathers as Children and Elders as Young Men. The Glory of this Day and Foundation of the Hope that has not made us ashamed since we were a People you know is that Blessed Principle of Light and Life of Christ which we profess and Direct all people to as the great and Divine Instrument and Agent of Man's Conversion to God It was by this that we were first Touched and effectually enlightned as to our Inward State which put us upon the Consideration of our Latter End causing us to set the Lord before our Eyes and to Number our Days that we might apply our Hearts to Wisdom In that Day we judged not after the Sight of the Eye or after the Hearing of the Ear but according to the Light and Sense this Blessed Principle gave us so we judged and acted in reference to Things and Persons our selves and others yea towards God our Maker For being quickned by it in our Inward Man we could easily discern the difference of things and feel what was Right and what was Wrong and what was Fit and what not both in reference to Religious and Civil Concerns That being the ground of the Fellowship of all Saints it was in That our Fellowship stood In this we desired to have a Sense one of another acted towards one another and all Men in Love Faithfulness and Fear In the feeling of the Stirrings and Motions of this Principle in our Hearts we drew near to the Lord and waited to be prepared by it that we might feel Drawings and Movings before we approached the Lord in Prayer or open'd our Mouths in Ministry And in our Beginning and Ending with This stood our Comfort Service and Edification And as we ran faster or fell short we made Burthens for our selves to bear our Services finding in our selves a Rebuke instead of an Acceptance and in lieu of Well done who has required this at your hands In that day we were an Exercised People our very Countenances and Deportment declared it Care for others was then much upon us as well as for our selves especially of the Young Convinced Often had we the Burthen of the Word of the Lord to our Neighbours Relations and Acquaintance and sometimes Strangers also We were in Travail likewise for one anothers Preservation Not seeking but shuning Occasions of any Coldness or Misunderstanding treating one another as those that believed and felt God present Which kept our Conversation Innocent Serious and Weighty guarding our selves against the Cares and Friendships of the World We held the Truth in the Spirit of it and not in our own Spirits or after our own Wills and Affections They were bowed and brought into Subjection in so much that it was visible to them that knew us we did not think our selves at our own Dispose to go where we List or say or do what we List or when we List Our Liberty stood in the Liberty of the Spirit of Truth and no Pleasure no Profit no Fear no Favour could draw us from this retired strict and watchful Frame We were so far from seeking occasions of Company that we avoided them what we could pursuing our own Business with Moderation instead of medling with other Peoples Unnecessarily Our Words were Few and Savoury our Looks Composed and Weighty and our whole Deportment very Observable True it is that this Retired and strict sort of Life from the Liberty of the Conversation of the World exposed us to the Censures of many as Humourists Conceited and Self-righteous Persons c. But it was our Preservation from many Snares