After this, Fox continues, 'I went to another ancient priest at Mancetter in Warwickshire, and reasoned with him about the ground of despair and temptations; but he was ignorant of my condition; he bade me take tobacco and sing psalms. Tobacco was a thing I did not love, and psalms I was not in a state to sing; I could not sing. Then he bid me come again and he would tell me many things; but when I came he was angry and pettish; for my former words had displeased him. He told my troubles, sorrows and griefs to his servants so that it got among the milk-lasses. It grieved me that I should have opened my mind to such a one. I saw they were all miserable comforters, and this brought my troubles more upon me. Then I heard of a priest living about Tamworth, which was accounted an experienced man, and I went seven miles to him; but I found him like an empty hollow cask. I heard also of one called Dr. Craddock of Coventry, and went to him. I asked him the ground of temptations and despair, and how troubles came to be wrought in man? He asked me, "Who was Christ's Father and Mother?" I told him Mary was His Mother, and that He was supposed to be the son of Joseph, but He was the Son of God. Now, as we were walking together in his garden, the alley being narrow, I chanced, in turning, to set my foot on the side of a bed, at which the man was in a rage, as if his house had been on fire. Thus all our discourse was lost, and I went away in sorrow, worse than I was when I came. I thought them miserable comforters, and saw they were all as nothing to me; for they could not reach my condition. After this I went to another, one Macham, a priest in high account. He would needs give me some physic, and I was to have been let blood; but they could not get one drop of blood from me, either in arms or head (though they endeavoured to do so), my body being, as it were, dried up with sorrows, grief and troubles, which were so great upon me that I could have wished I had never been born, or that I had been born blind, that I might never have seen wickedness or vanity; and deaf, that I might never have heard vain and wicked words, or the Lord's name blasphemed. When the time called Christmas came, while others were feasting and sporting themselves, I looked out poor widows from house to house, and gave them some money. When I was invited to marriages (as I sometimes was) I went to none at all, but the next day, or soon after, I would go to visit them; and if they were poor, I gave them some money; for I had wherewith both to keep myself from being chargeable to others, and to administer something to the necessities of those who were in need.'
Three years passed in this way, and then at last the first streaks of light began to dawn in the darkness. They came, not in any sudden or startling way, but little by little his soul was filled with the hope of dawn:
Silently as the morning
Comes on when night is done,
Or the crimson streak, on ocean's cheek,
Grows into the great sun.
He says, 'About the beginning of the year 1646, as I was going into Coventry, a consideration arose in me how it was said, "All Christians are believers, both Protestants and Papists," and the Lord opened to me, that if all were believers, then they were all born of God, and were passed from death unto life, and that none were true believers but such, and though others said they were believers, yet they were not.'
Possibly George Fox was looking up at the 'Three Tall Spires' of Coventry when this thought came to him, and remembering in how many different ways Christians had worshipped under their shadow: first the Latin Mass, then the order of Common Prayer, and now the Puritan service. 'At another time,' he says, 'as I was walking in a field on a first day morning, the Lord opened to me "That being bred at Oxford or Cambridge was not enough to fit and qualify men to be ministers of Christ:" and I wondered at it because it was the common belief of people. But I saw it clearly as the Lord had opened it to me, and was satisfied and admired the goodness of the Lord, who had opened the thing to me this morning.... So that which opened in me struck I saw at the priests' ministry. But my relations were much troubled that I would not go with them to hear the priest; for I would go into the orchard or the fields with my Bible by myself.... I saw that to be a true believer was another thing than they looked upon it to be ... so neither them nor any of the dissenting people could I join with.
'At another time it was opened in me, "That God who made the world did not dwell in temples made with hands." This at the first seemed strange, because both priests and people used to call their temples or churches dreadful places, holy ground and the temples of God. But the Lord showed me clearly that He did not dwell in these temples which men had made, but in people's hearts.'
In this way George Fox had found out for himself three of the foundation truths of a pure faith:—
1st. That all Christians are believers, Protestants and Papists alike.
2nd. That Christ was come to teach His people Himself.
3rd. That the Temple in which God wishes to dwell is in the hearts of His children.