Part 4

XI. Their plainness with those in authority, like the ancient prophets, not fearing to tell them to their faces, of their private and public sins; and their prophesies to them of their afflictions and downfal, when in the top of their glory: also of some national judgments, as of the plague, and fire of London, in express terms; and likewise particular ones to divers persecutors, which accordingly overtook them; and were very remarkable in the places where they dwelt, which in time may be made public for the glory of God.

Thus, reader, thou seest this people in their rise, principles, ministry, and progress, both their general and particular testimony; by which thou mayst be informed how, and upon what foot, they sprang, and became so considerable a people. It remains next, that I show also their care, conduct, and discipline as a Christian and reformed society, that they might be found living up to their own principles and profession. And this the rather, because they have hardly suffered more in their character from the unjust charge of error, than by the false imputation of disorder: which calumny, indeed, has not failed to follow all the true steps that were ever made to reformation, and under which reproach none suffered more than the primitive Christians themselves, that were the honour of Christianity, and the great lights and examples of their own and succeeding ages.

CHAP. IV.

_Of the discipline and practice of this people_, _as a religious society_. _The church power they own and exercise_, _and that which they reject and condemn_: _with the method of their proceedings against erring and disorderly persons_.

This people increasing daily both in town and country, a holy care fell upon some of the elders among them, for the benefit and service of the church. And the first business in their view, after the example of the primitive saints, was the exercise of charity; to supply the necessities of the poor, and answer the like occasions. Wherefore collections were early and liberally made for that and divers other services in the church, and intrusted with faithful men, fearing God, and of good report, who were not weary in well doing; adding often of their own in large proportions, which they never brought to account, or desired should be known, much less restored to them, that none might want, nor any service be retarded or disappointed.

They were also very careful, that every one that belonged to them, answered their profession in their behaviour among men, upon all occasions; that they lived peaceably, and were in all things good examples. They found themselves engaged to record their sufferings and services: and in the case of marriage, which they could not perform in the usual methods of the nation, but among themselves, they took care that all things were clear between the parties and all others: and it was then rare, that any one entertained an inclination to a person on that account, till he or she had communicated it secretly to some very weighty and eminent friends among them, that they might have a sense of the matter; looking to the counsel and unity of their brethren as of great moment to them. But because the charge of the poor, the number of orphans, marriages, sufferings, and other matters, multiplied; and that it was good that the churches were in some way and method of proceeding in such affairs among them, to the end they might the better correspond upon occasion, where a member of one meeting might have to do with one of another; it pleased the Lord, in his wisdom and goodness, to open the understanding of the first instrument of this dispensation of life, about a good and orderly way of proceeding; who felt a holy concern to visit the churches in person throughout this nation, to begin and establish it among them: and by his epistles, the like was done in other nations and provinces abroad; which he also afterwards visited, and helped in that service, as shall be observed when I come to speak of him.

Now the care, conduct, and discipline, I have been speaking of, and which are now practised among this people, is as followeth.

This godly elder, in every county where he travelled, exhorted them that some, out of every meeting of worship, should meet together once in the month, to confer about the wants and occasions of the church. And, as the case required, so those monthly meetings were fewer or more in number in every respective county; four or six meetings of worship, usually making one monthly meeting of business. And accordingly, the brethren met him from place to place, and began the said meetings, viz. For the poor, orphans, orderly walking, integrity to their profession, births, marriages, burials, sufferings, &c. And that these monthly meetings should, in each county, make up one quarterly meeting, where the most zealous and eminent friends of the county should assemble to communicate, advise, and help one another, especially when any business seemed difficult, or a monthly meeting was tender of determining a matter.

Also that these several quarterly meetings should digest the reports of their monthly meetings, and prepare one for each respective county, against the yearly meeting, in which all quarterly meetings resolve; which is held in London: where the churches in this nation, and other nations {43a} and provinces, meet by chosen members of their respective counties, both mutually to communicate their church affairs, and to advise, and be advised in any depending case, to edification. Also to provide a requisite stock for the discharge of general expenses for general services in the church, not needful to be here particularized. {43b}

At these meetings any of the members of the churches may come, if they please, and speak their minds freely, in the fear of God, to any matter; but the mind of each quarterly meeting, therein represented, is chiefly understood, as to particular cases, in the sense delivered by the persons deputed, or chosen for that service by the said meeting.

During their yearly meeting, to which their other meetings refer in their order, and naturally resolve themselves, care is taken by a select number, for that service chosen by the general assembly, to draw up the minutes {44} of the said meeting, upon the several matters that have been under consideration therein, to the end that the respective quarterly and monthly meetings may be informed of all proceedings; together with a general exhortation to holiness, unity, and charity. Of all which proceedings in yearly, monthly, and quarterly meetings, due record is kept by some one appointed for that service, or that hath voluntarily undertaken it. These meetings are opened and usually concluded in their solemn waiting upon God, who is sometimes graciously pleased to answer them with as signal evidences of his love and presence, as in any of their meetings of worship.

It is further to be noted, that in these solemn assemblies for the churches' service, there is no one presides among them after the manner of the assemblies of other people; Christ only being their President, as he is pleased to appear in life and wisdom in any one or more of them, to whom, whatever be their capacity or degree, the rest adhere with a firm unity, not of authority, but conviction, which is the divine authority and way of Christ's power and Spirit in his people: making good his blessed promise, "that he would be in the midst of his, where and whenever they were met together in his name, even to the end of the world." So be it.

Now it may be expected, I should here set down what sort of authority is exercised by this people, upon such members of their society as correspond not in their lives with their profession, and that are refractory to this good and wholesome order settled among them: and the rather, because they have not wanted their reproach and sufferings from some tongues and pens, upon this occasion, in a plentiful manner.

The power they exercise, is such as Christ has given to his own people, to the end of the world, in the persons of his disciples, viz. To oversee, exhort, reprove, and, after long suffering and waiting upon the disobedient and refractory, to disown them, as any longer of their communion, or that they will stand charged with the behaviour of such transgressors, or their conversation, until they repent. The subject matter about which this authority, in any of the foregoing branches of it, is exercised, is, first, in relation to common and general practice. And, secondly, about those things that more strictly refer to their own character and profession, and which distinguish them from all other professors of Christianity; avoiding two extremes upon which many split, viz. persecution and libertinism, that is, a coercive power to whip people into the temple; that such as will not conform, though against faith and conscience, shall be punished in their persons or estates; or leaving all loose and at large, as to practice; and so unaccountable to all but God and the magistrate. To which hurtful extreme, nothing has more contributed than the abuse of church power, by such as suffer their passion and private interests to prevail with them, to carry it to outward force and corporal punishment: a practice they have been taught to dislike, by their extreme sufferings, as well as their known principle for a universal liberty of conscience.

On the other hand, they equally dislike an independency in society:--an unaccountableness, in practice and conversation, to the rules and terms of their own communion, and to those that are the members of it. They distinguish between imposing any practice that immediately regards faith or worship, which is never to be done or suffered, or submitted unto; and requiring Christian compliance with those methods that only respect church-business in its more civil part and concern; and that regard the discreet and orderly maintenance of the character of the society as a sober and religious community. In short, what is for the promotion of holiness and charity, that men may practise what they profess, live up to their own principles, and not be at liberty to give the lie to their own profession without rebuke, is their use and limit of church power. They compel none to them, but oblige those that are of them to walk suitably, or they are denied by them: that is all the mark they set upon them, and the power they exercise, or judge a Christian society can exercise, upon those that are members of it.

The way of their proceeding against such as have lapsed or transgressed, is this. He is visited by some of them, and the matter of fact laid home to him, be it any evil practice against known and general virtue, or any branch of their particular testimony, which he, in common, professeth with them. They labour with him in much love and zeal, for the good of his soul, the honour of God, and reputation of their profession, to own his fault and condemn it, in as ample a manner as the evil or scandal was given by him; which, for the most part, is performed by some written testimony under the party's hand: and if it so happen, that the party prove refractory, and is not willing to clear the truth they profess, from the reproach of his or her evil doing or unfaithfulness, they, after repeated entreaties and due waiting for a token of repentance, give forth a paper to disown such a fact, and the party offending: recording the same as a testimony of their care for the honour of the truth they profess.

And if he or she shall clear their profession and themselves, by sincere acknowledgment of their fault, and godly sorrow for so doing, they are received and looked upon again as members of their communion. For as God, so his true people, upbraid no man after repentance.

This is the account I had to give of the people of God called Quakers, as to their rise, appearance, principles, and practices, in this age of the world, both with respect to their faith and worship, discipline and conversation. And I judge it very proper in this place, because it is to preface the journal of the first, blessed, and glorious instrument of this work, and for a testimony to him in his singular qualifications and services, in which he abundantly excelled in this day, and which are worthy to be set forth as an example to all succeeding times, to the glory of the most high God, and for a just memorial to that worthy and excellent man, his faithful servant and apostle to this generation of the world.

CHAP. V.

_Of the first instrument or person by whom God was pleased to gather this people into the way they profess_. _His name George Fox_: _his many excellent qualifications; showing a divine_, _and not a human power to have been their original in him_. _His troubles and sufferings both from without and within_. _His end and triumph_.

I am now come to the third head or branch of my preface, viz. the instrumental author. For it is natural for some to say, Well, here is the people and work, but where and who was the man, the instrument? He that in this age was sent to begin this work and people? I shall, as God shall enable me, declare who and what he was; not only by report of others, but from my own long and most inward converse, and intimate knowledge of him; for which my soul blesseth God, as it hath often done: and I doubt not, but by that time I have discharged myself of this part of my preface, my serious readers will believe I had good cause so to do.

The blessed instrument of, and in this day of God, and of whom I am now about to write, was George Fox, distinguished from another of that name, by that other's addition of younger to his name, in all his writings; not that he was so in years, but that he was so in the truth: but he was also a worthy man, witness, and servant of God in his time.

But this George Fox was born in Leicestershire, about the year 1624. He descended of honest and sufficient parents, who endeavoured to bring him up, as they did the rest of their children, in the way and worship of the nation: especially his mother, who was a woman accomplished above most of her degree in the place where she lived. But from a child he appeared of another frame of mind than the rest of his brethren; being more religious, inward, still, solid, and observing beyond his years, as the answers he would give, and the questions he would put, upon occasion, manifested, to the astonishment of those that heard him, especially in divine things.

His mother, taking notice of his singular temper, and the gravity, wisdom, and piety, that very early shined through him, refusing childish and vain sports, and company, when very young, was tender and indulgent over him, so that from her he met with little difficulty. As to his employment, he was brought up in country business, and as he took most delight in sheep, so he was very skilful in them; an employment that very well suited his mind in several respects, both for its innocency and solitude; and was a just emblem of his after ministry and service.

I shall not break in upon his own account, which is by much the best that can be given, and therefore desire what I can, to avoid saying anything of what is said already, as to the particular passages of his coming forth: but, in general, when he was somewhat above twenty, he left his friends, and visited the most retired and religious people in those parts; and some there were in this nation, who waited for the consolation of Israel, night and day; as Zacharias, Anna, and good old Simeon did of old time. To these he was sent, and these he sought out in the neighbouring counties, and among them he sojourned till his more ample ministry came upon him. At this time he taught, and was an example of, silence, endeavouring to bring them from self-performances; testifying of, and turning them to, the light of Christ within them, and encouraging them to wait in patience, and to feel the power of it to stir in their hearts, that their knowledge and worship of God might stand in the power of an endless life, which was to be found in the light, as it was obeyed in the manifestation of it in man. For in the word was life, and that life is the light of men: life in the word, light in men; and life in men too, as the light is obeyed: the children of the light living by the life of the word, by which the word begets them again to God, which is the regeneration and new birth, without which there is no coming into the kingdom of God: and to which whoever comes, is greater than John; that is, than John's dispensation, which was not that of the kingdom, but the consummation of the legal, and fore-running of the gospel-times, the time of the kingdom. Accordingly several meetings were gathered in those parts; and thus his time was employed for some years.

In 1652, he being in his usual retirement, his mind exercised towards the Lord, upon a very high mountain in some of the higher parts of Yorkshire, as I take it, he had a vision of the great work of God in the earth, and of the way that he was to go forth in a public ministry, to begin it. He saw people as thick as motes in the sun, that should in time be brought home to the Lord, that there might be but one shepherd and one sheepfold in all the earth. There his eye was directed northward, beholding a great people that should receive him and his message in those parts. Upon this mountain he was moved of the Lord to sound out his great and notable day, as if he had been in a great auditory; and from thence went north, as the Lord had shown him. And in every place where he came, if not before he came to it, he had his particular exercise and service shown to him, so that the Lord was his leader indeed. For it was not in vain that he travelled; God in most places sealing his commission with the convincement of some of all sorts, as well publicans as sober professors of religion. Some of the first and most eminent of those that came forth in a public ministry, and who are now at rest, were Richard Farnsworth, James Nayler, William Dewsberry, Thomas Aldam, Francis Howgil, Edward Burroughs, John Camm, John Audland, Richard Hubberthorn, T. Taylor, T. Holmes, Alexander Parker, Wm. Simson, William Caton, John Stubbs, Robert Withers, Thomas Low, Josiah Coale, John Burnyeat, Robert Lodge, Thomas Salthouse, and many more worthies, that cannot well be here named; together with divers yet living of the first and great convincement; who, after the knowledge of God's purging judgment in themselves, and some time of waiting in silence upon him, to feel and receive power from on high to speak in his name, (which none else rightly can, though they may use the same words,) felt its divine motions, and were frequently drawn forth, especially to visit the public assemblies, to reprove, inform, and exhort them: sometimes in markets, fairs, streets, and by the highway-side: calling people to repentance, and to turn to the Lord with their hearts as well as their mouths; directing them to the light of Christ within them, to see, examine, and consider their ways by, and to eschew the evil, and do the good and acceptable will of God. And they suffered great hardships for this their love and good-will; being often stocked, stoned, beaten, whipped, and imprisoned, though honest men, and of good report where they lived; that had left wives, children, and houses and lands to visit them with a living call to repentance. And though the priests generally set themselves to oppose them, and wrote against them, and insinuated most false and scandalous stories to defame them, stirring up the magistrates to suppress them, especially in those northern parts; yet God was pleased to fill them with his living power, and give them such an open door of utterance in his service, that there was a mighty convincement over those parts.

And through the tender and singular indulgence of judge Bradshaw, and judge Fell, and colonel West, in the infancy of things, the priests were never able to gain the point they laboured for, which was to have proceeded to blood; and, if possible, Herod-like, by a cruel exercise of the civil power, to have cut them off, and rooted them out of the country. But especially judge Fell, who was not only a check to their rage in the course of legal proceedings, but otherwise upon occasion; and finally countenanced this people. For, his wife receiving the truth with the first, it had that influence upon his spirit, being a just and wise man, and seeing in his own wife and family a full confutation of all the popular clamours against the way of truth, that he covered them what he could, and freely opened his doors, and gave up his house to his wife and her friends; not valuing the reproach of ignorant or evil-minded people: which I here mention to his and her honour, and which will be, I believe, an honour and a blessing to such of their name and family, as shall be found in that tenderness, humility, love, and zeal for the truth and people of the Lord.

That house was for some years, at first especially, until the truth had opened its way into the southern parts of this island, an eminent receptacle of this people. Others, of good note and substance in those northern countries, had also opened their houses, together with their hearts, to the many publishers, that, in a short time, the Lord had raised to declare his salvation to the people; and where meetings of the Lord's messengers were frequently held, to communicate their services and exercises, and comfort and edify one another in their blessed ministry.

But lest this may be thought a digression, having touched upon this before, I return to this excellent man; and for his personal qualities, both natural, moral, and divine, as they appeared in his converse with the brethren, and in the church of God, take as follows:

I. He was a man that God endued with a clear and wonderful depth: a discerner of others' spirits, and very much a master of his own. And though that side of his understanding which lay next to the world, and especially the expression of it, might sound uncouth and unfashionable to nice ears, his matter was nevertheless very profound; and would not only bear to be often considered, but the more it was so, the more weighty and instructing it appeared. And as abruptly and brokenly as sometimes his sentences would seem to fall from him, about divine things, it is well known they were often as texts to many fairer declarations.