Mysticism formed his whole character. It penetrated his intellect. It pervaded his spirit. It was the soul of his religion, and the mainspring of his morality. It inspired him with the love of solitude and the love of nature. To get away from his fellow-creatures to commune with himself, and with God, amidst the solitudes of creation, became his chief delight. Not that when he speaks of wandering in fields and orchards, and of getting into the depths of forests, and the hollows of trees, it was with a poet's perception of nature's mysteries. He rather wished, whilst away from the noisy world, in the deep silence of a summer's noon or a winter's night, to open his inmost self to the Spirit of God, to uncover the hidden harp that an invisible finger might touch the strings; to walk in an inward light, to enjoy the indwelling Christ, and to receive revelations of truth and love from those pure realms where they everlastingly reign. George Fox often deluded himself, and mistook for the Divine what was merely human: but that the Holy Ghost wrought within his heart in a powerful manner, who can doubt? His errors were often the shadows of everlasting verities; some of his aberrations came from noble self-denying impulses; and with respect to him it might be aptly said, "And e'en the light that led astray was light from heaven."
The solitary became ascetic, as was natural. He denied himself the common comforts of life, he would not eat and drink like other people, and for a while he belied the name of "friend," and walked about like a hermit or a ghost. "And when he came into a town, he took a chamber to himself there, and tarried sometimes a month, sometimes more, sometimes less, in a place; for he was afraid of staying long in any place, lest, being a tender young man, he should be hurt by too familiar a conversation with men."[367] He had deep spiritual exercises of soul. No one could be more conscious of the existence of evil powers—of Satanic agencies in the invisible world to which the inner nature of man belongs even in the present life. But applying to himself the holy words, "in returning and in rest shall ye be saved, in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength," he sought refuge from his mysterious troubles by abiding "under the shadow of the Almighty." Describing his experience when he was pressed by the greatest of mystical problems, he says:—"One morning, as I was sitting by the fire, a great cloud came over me, and a temptation beset me; but I sat 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 as I sat still, and said nothing, the people of the house perceived nothing. And as I sat still under it, and let it alone, a living hope arose in me, and a true voice 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; my heart was glad, and I praised the living God."[368]
George Fox.
Fox was mighty in prayer. So great an effect he produced on one occasion, that the persons present felt as if the house were shaken by a mighty wind and the day of Pentecost had once more fully come; and Penn declared: "The most awful living reverent frame I ever felt or beheld, I must say, was his in prayer."[369] By Fox's public teaching he became more widely known, and exerted an influence which has lasted from that day to this. Believing in the fundamental doctrines of Christianity,[370] and regarding them in an anti-Calvinistic light, strong in a simple Evangelical faith, but without any theological discipline of thought, preferring the language of Scripture to the words of men—he added to all this, as the first-fruit of his mystical tendencies, a belief in the "inward light," even the revelation of Christ in the soul, not as superseding holy Scripture, but as its necessary witness and its gracious supplement. He dwelt very largely upon redemption through Christ, as consisting in deliverance from sin, not simply from its guilt, but from its power;—a view of salvation of the very last importance, and one which had been, at least partially, obscured through the prominence given by some theologians of the day to the doctrine of pardon, and the change effected in our legal relationship by the work of Christ, without a due exhibition of the moral change in the heart and life which forms so important an aspect of the one salvation of the Gospel of God. He dwelt much on the subject of man's deliverance from sin itself—from its power and practice—which the Divine Redeemer had accomplished. Ideas of human perfectibility through Christ[371] blended with Fox's conceptions of holiness and of the work of the Spirit; and his notion of Christianity as a purely spiritual system[372] led to further peculiarities which, in fact, chiefly distinguished this remarkable teacher in the estimation of contemporaries. Hence sprang his opposition to sacraments, to ceremonies, and to forms of prayer, and also his delight in the exercises of silent worship. Hence, too, his dislike to all compulsory support of the ministry, whether by tithes or taxation; together with a horror of human priesthoods, and even of any order of Christian teachers educated and exclusively set apart for the service. His condemnation of the use of oaths and of the practice of war resulted from his reverence for the Supreme Being, and from the deep sympathies of his benevolent nature with the pacific spirit of the Gospel.
George Fox.
But his oddities attracted still more notice than his preaching. He wore very long hair, and clothed himself in a suit of leather; things, however, of which too much has been made by his biographers, seeing that this sort of dress was worn only for a time, and was adapted for rough use, while it was not so very strange in an age of leather doublets. Nor was his numbering the days of the week, instead of calling them by their usual names, so peculiar as is supposed, since it appears to have been the practice of Independents and Baptists to do the same. Nor did "thee" and "thou" sound so strange as in the present day. But the stern refusal to take off his hat before anybody, even before magistrates; the violence with which he assailed "priests," and all ministers; the terms he applied to parish churches, calling them "steeple-houses;" the encouragement he gave to the preaching of women; and the manner in which he publicly testified against evil, made this spiritual reformer appear a most eccentric personage, and brought down upon him ridicule and abuse, and a great deal of what was very much worse.[373] His testimonies were delivered at wakes, at fairs, at inns, in courts of justice, and in places of worship. When the bell rang for church, it smote his soul as a sign that the Gospel was going to be sold, not given without money and without price; and off the honest enthusiast went to the steeple-house, to interrupt the minister, and protest against his ministry. This, of course, could not be tolerated, and presently he found himself shut up in filthy cells, or set in the public stocks. The punishment was severe, monstrously and beyond all proportion to the offence, but the offender clearly put himself in a false position. With no taste for Gothic architecture, looking upon cathedrals as popish mass-houses, he could not endure the sight of the beautiful spires of Lichfield; so, pulling off his shoes, he walked through the streets, and thinking of pagan persecutions there in old times, cried "Woe, woe to the bloody city."[374] The magistrates of Derby most unjustly convicted him of blasphemy, under the late Act against atheistical opinions, and sentenced him to six months' confinement in the House of Correction. He subsequently moderated some of his excesses, but this did not secure him against outrageous persecutions and intolerable sufferings. The Quaker reveals his character as he tells his story. "When the Lord first sent me forth in the year 1643, I was sent as an innocent lamb (and young in years) amongst (men in the nature of) wolves, dogs, bears, lions and tigers into the world, which the devil had made like a wilderness, no right way then found out of it. And I was sent to turn people from darkness to the light, which Christ, the Second Adam, did enlighten them withal; that so they might see Christ, their way to God, with the Spirit of God, which He doth pour upon all flesh, that with it they might have an understanding to know the things of God, and to know Him, and His Son, Jesus Christ, which is eternal life; and so might worship and serve the living God, their maker and creator, who takes care for all, who is Lord of all; and with the light and Spirit of God they might know the Scriptures, which were given forth from the Spirit of God in the saints, and holy men and women of God.
"And when they began to be turned to the light (which is the life in Christ) and the Spirit of God, which gave them an understanding, and had found the path of the just, the shining light, then did the wolves, dogs, dragons, bears, lions, tigers, wild beasts and birds of prey make a roaring and a screeching noise against the lambs, sheep, doves, and children of Christ, and were ready to devour them and me, and to tear us in pieces. But the Lord's arm and power did preserve me; though many times I was in danger of my life, and very often cast into dungeons and prisons, and haled before magistrates. But all things did work together for good, and the more I was cast into outward prisons, the more people came out of their spiritual and inward prisons (through the preaching of the Gospel). But the priests and professors were in such a great rage, and made the rude and profane people in such a fury, that I could hardly walk in the streets, or go in the highways, but they were ready oft-times to do me a mischief. But Christ, who hath all power in heaven and in the earth, did so restrain and limit them with His power, that my life was preserved; though many times I was near killed.
"Oh! the burdens and travels that I went under! Often my life pressed down under the spirits of professors and teachers without life, and the profane! And besides, the troubles afterwards with backsliders, apostates, and false brethren, which were like so many Judases in betraying the truth, and God's faithful and chosen seed, and causing the way of truth to be evil spoken of! But the Lord blasted, wasted, and confounded them, so that none did stand long; for the Lord did either destroy them or bring them to nought, and His truth did flourish, and His people in it, to the praise of God, who is the revenger of His chosen."[375]
Fox appeared before the Lord Protector. The meeting of the two at Whitehall must have been a remarkable scene. Both mystical, but in different degrees—both enthusiastic in religion, and perhaps equally sincere in the most erratic forms of their respective faiths—the man in power excelled in that practical shrewdness and common sense, which were not altogether wanting in his persecuted brother; and, while the latter was throwing the religious world into disturbance, the former aimed at restoring it to order. Cromwell reproached Fox for opposing the regular clergy. Fox told Cromwell that all Christendom had the Scriptures; but that those who preached were destitute of the Spirit by which the Scriptures were written. Thus two strong wills came into collision. But when the Quaker went on lovingly to talk upon the mysteries of spiritual experience, it touched the heart of the Lord Protector at once; and pressing his friend's hand, whom he allowed to wear his hat in his presence, he said: "Come again to my house; if thou and I were together but one hour in every day we should be nearer to each other. I wish you no more ill than I do to my own soul."
Fox's Disciples.