VIII.
Sin.
Pleading for Unholiness.
When I was in prison, diverse professors came to discourse with me; and I had a sense, before they spoke, that they came to plead for sin and imperfection. I asked them, Whether they were believers and had faith? And they said Yes. I asked them, In whom? And they said, In Christ. I replied, If ye are true believers in Christ, you are passed from death to life and if passed from death, then from sin that bringeth death. And if your faith be true, it will give you victory over sin and the devil; for they said they could not believe that any could be free from sin on this side the grave. I bid them give over babbling about the Scriptures which were holy men’s words, whilst they pleaded for unholiness.
(Journal, 8th ed., II., p. 56.)
Perfection.
There came a priest and some people with him to me and he asked me if I was grown up to perfection and I said I was what I was by the grace of God; and the common-prayer priest said it was a civil answer and he said that if we do say that we have no sin, the truth is not in us; what did I say to this? And I said if we say that we have not sinned we make him a liar who came to destroy sin and take away sin and so there is a time to see that people have sinned and that they have sin and to confess their sin and to forsake it; and the blood of Christ to cleanse from all sin. And it was asked him whether Adam was not perfect before he fell, and all God’s works were they not perfect? And the priest said yes. But the priest said we might always be striving and this was a sad striving and never overcome. But I told him that Paul that cried out against the body of death after thanked God, through Jesus Christ who gave him the victory; and there was no condemnation to them that was in Christ Jesus. So there was a time of crying out and a time of praising. And the priest said there might be a perfection as Adam and a falling from it and I said there was a perfection in Christ beyond Adam and should never fall; and it was the work of the ministers of Christ to present every man perfect in Christ and for the perfecting of them they had their gifts from Christ and they that denied perfection they denied the work of ... (illegible) the gifts of Christ who was for that end for the perfecting, broken.
(Journal Friends’ Hist. Soc., Vol. V., p. 170, from a Fox autograph.)
A Customary Word.
And to all ye that say, God give us grace and we shall refrain from our sin, there ye have got a tempting customary word, for the free grace of God hath appeared to all men and this is the grace of God hath appeared to all men and this is the grace of God which shows the ungodliness and worldly lusts.
(Works, IV., p. 21.)