Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n
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A38513
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An epistle by way of testimony to friends and brethren of the monthly and quarterly meetings in England, Wales, and elsewhere, concerning the decease of our faithful brother George Fox. From our second days morning-meeting in London, the 26th of the 11th month, 1690.
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1690
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Wing E3164; ESTC R219565
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4,816
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5
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AN EPISTLE By Way of TESTIMONY To Friends and Brethren of the Monthly and Quarterly Meetings in England Wales and Elsewhere concerning the Decease of our Faithful Brother GEORGE FOX From our second Days Morning-Meeting in London the 26th of the 11th Month 1690. Dear and truly Beloved Friends Brethren and Sisters in Christ Jesus our Blessed Lord and Saviour WE sincerely and tenderly salute you all in his free and tender Love wherewith he hath graciously visited us and largely shed it abroad in our Hearts and Souls to our own unspeakable Comfort and Consolation and towards his whole Heritage and Royal Off-spring blessed be his pure and powerful Name for Evermore And our Souls do truly and fervently desire and breath unto the God of all our Mercies that you all may be preserved and kept truly faithful and diligent in his Work and Service according to your Heavenly Calling and Indowments with his Light Grace and Truth unto the end of your Days as being livingly engaged thereby all your appointed time to serve him and to wait till your Change come that none may neglect that true Improvement of your Times and Talents that God has afforded you here for your Eternal Advantage hereafter in that Inheritance and Life Immortal that never fades away And that the whole Flock and Heritage of Christ Jesus which he has purchased and bought for himself with a Price incorruptible may always be so preserved in his own pure Love and Life as to grow increase and prosper in the same and thereby be kept in Love Unity and Peace with one another as becomes his true and faithful Followers is that which our very Hearts and Souls desire being often truly comforted and enlarged in the living sense and feeling of the Encrease and Aboundings thereof among faithful Friends and Brethren And Dear Brethren and Sisters unto this our Tender Salutation We are concerned in Brotherly Love and true Tender-heartedness to add and impart unto you some Account of the Decease of our Dear and Elder Brother in Christ namely his and his Churches true and faithful Servant and Minister George Fox Whom it hath pleased the Lord to take unto himself as he hath divers others of his faithful Servants and Ministers of late Time who have faithfully served out their Generation and finished their Testimony and Course with Joy and Peace Howbeit O Dear Brethren and Friends That so many Worthies in Israel and serviceable Instruments in the Lord's Hand are of late taken away and removed from us so soon one after another appears a Dispensation that deeply and sorrowfully affects us and many more whose Hearts are upright and tender toward God and one to another in the Truth The Consideration of the Depth Weight and Meaning thereof is very weighty upon our Spirits though their precious Life and Testimony lives with us as being of that same Body united to one Head even Christ Jesus in which we still and hope ever shall have secret Comfort and Union with them whom the Lord has removed and taken to himself out of their Earthly Tabernacles and Houses into their Heavenly and Everlasting Mansions This our said Dear Brother George Fox was enabled by the Lord's power to Preach the Truth fully and effectually in our Publick Meeting in White-Hart-Court by Grace-Church Street London on the eleventh 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 withall 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 Looseness 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 intangling 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 inabled 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 mighty 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 Haleings 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 where-ever 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 Gain Yet how can we avoid being deeply affected with sadness of Spirit and brokenness of Heart under the sense and consideration of such Loss and Revolutions which we have cause to believe are ominous of Calamities to the wicked World tho' of good to the Righteous Did the death of plain upright Jacob namely Israel who was as a Prince of God so deeply affect both his own Children and Kinred Gen. 50. as that they made a great and exceeding sore Lamentation for him and even the Egyptians also that they bewailed him seventy days And the Death of Moses so deeply affect the Children of Israel Deut. 34. as that they did weep and mourn for him in the Plain of Moab thirty Days And the Death of Stephen that faithful Martyr of Jesus so deeply affect certain Men fearing God Acts 7. as that they made great Lamentation for him And the Apostle Paul when taking his leave of the Elders of the Church of Ephesus and telling them Acts 20. They should see his face no more If this did so deeply affect them that they wept all abundantly sorrowing most of all for these Words That they should see his face no more With many more of this kind How then can we otherwise chuse but be deeply affected with sorrow and sadness of Heart tho' not as those which have no hope when so many of our ancient dear and faithful Brethren with whom we have had much sweet Society are removed from us one after another We pray God raise up and increase more such Yet must we all contentedly submit to the good Pleasure and Wisdom of the Lord our God in all these things who taketh away and none can hinder him nor may any say unto him What dost thou Yet we have cause to bless the Lord that he hath of late raised and is raising up more to publish his Name in the Earth And we that yet remain have but a short time to stay after them that are gone but we shall be gone to them also The Lord God of Life keep us all faithful in his holy Truth Love Unity and Life to the end He hath a great Work still to bring forth in the Earth and great things to bring to pass in order to make way for Truth and Righteousness to take place therein and that his Seed may come forth and be gathered and the Power and Kingdom of our God and of his Christ made known and exalted in the Earth unto the ends thereof Dear Friends and Brethren Be faithful till Death that a Crown of Life you may obtain All dwell in the Love of God in Christ Jesus in Vnion and Peace in him to whom we tenderly commit you to keep and strengthen you Bless and preserve you to the end of your days In whose dear and tender Love we remain Your Dear Friends and Brethren Stephen Crisp Geo. Whitehead Fra. Camfield James Parke John Elson Peter Price John Feild John Edridge Nicholas Gates Francis Stamper John Vaughton Gilbert Latey Charles Marshal Rich. Needham James Martin Daniel Monro Jo. Heywood George Bowles William Robinson William Bingley John Butcher POSTSCRIPT BEfore his Death he writ a little Paper desiring all Friends every where that use to write to him about the Sufferings and Affairs of Friends in their several Countries should henceforth write to their several Correspondents in London to be Communicated to the second Days Meeting to take Care that they be answered LONDON Printed for Thomas Northcott in George-Yard in Lombard-street 1690.