Now, my friends, by what you have read, you may perceive that God has visited a poor people among you, with this saving knowledge and testimony, whom he has upheld and increased to this day, notwithstanding the fierce opposition they have met withal. Despise not the meanness of this appearance: it was, and yet is, we know, a day of small things and of small account with too many; and many hard and ill names are given to it; but it is of God, it came from him, because it leads to him. This we know, but we cannot make another to know it, unless he will take the same way to know it that we took. The world talks of God, but what do they do? They pray for power, but reject the principle in which it is. If you would know God, and worship and serve God as you should do, you must come to the means he has ordained and given for that purpose. Some seek it in books, some in learned men; but what they look for is in themselves, (though not of themselves,) but they overlook it. The voice is too still, the seed too small, and the light shineth in darkness; they are abroad, and so cannot divide the spoil: but the woman that lost her silver, found it at home, after she had lighted her candle, and swept her house. Do you so too, and you shall find
what Pilate wanted to know, viz. Truth. Truth in the inward parts, so valuable in the sight of God.
The light of Christ within, who is the light of the world, and so a light to you, that tells you the truth of your condition, leads all, that take heed unto it, out of darkness into God’s marvellous light. For light grows upon the obedient; it is sown for the righteous, and their way is a shining light, that shines forth more and more to the perfect day.
Wherefore, O friends, turn in, turn in, I beseech you: where is the poison, there is the antidote. There you want Christ, and there you must find him; and blessed be God, there you may find him. Seek and you shall find, I testify for God. But then you must seek aright, with your whole heart, as men that seek for their lives, yea for their eternal lives: diligently, humbly, patiently, as those that can taste no pleasure, comfort, or satisfaction in any thing else, unless you find him whom your souls want to know and love above all. O it is a travail, a spiritual travail! let the carnal, profane world, think and say as it will. And through this path you must walk to the city of God, that has eternal foundations, if ever you will come there.
Well! and what doth this blessed light do for you? Why, first, it sets all your sins in order before you: it detects the spirit of this world in all its baits and allurements, and shows how man came to fall from God, and the fallen state he is in. Secondly, it begets a sense and sorrow, in such as believe in it, for this fearful lapse. You will then see him distinctly whom you have pierced, and all the blows and wounds you have given him by your disobedience, and how you have made him to serve with your sins; and you
will weep and mourn for it, and your sorrow will be a godly sorrow. Thirdly, after this it will bring you to the holy watch, to take care that you do so no more, and that the enemy surprise you not again. Then thoughts, as well as words and works, will come to judgment, which is the way of holiness, in which the redeemed of the Lord do walk. Here you will come to love God above all, and your neighbours as yourselves. Nothing hurts, nothing harms, nothing makes afraid on this holy mountain. Now you come to be Christ’s indeed; for you are his in nature and spirit, and not your own. And when you are thus Christ’s, then Christ is yours, and not before. And here you will know communion with the Father and with the Son, and the efficacy of the blood of cleansing, even the blood of Jesus Christ, that immaculate Lamb, which speaks better things than the blood of Abel; and which cleanseth from all sin, the consciences of those that, through the living faith, come to be sprinkled with it, from dead works to serve the living God.
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To conclude; behold the testimony and doctrine of the people called Quakers; behold their practice and discipline; and behold the blessed man and men, at least many of them, that were sent of God in this excellent work and service; all which is more particularly expressed in the annals of that man of God, which I do heartily recommend to my reader’s most serious perusal; and beseech Almighty God, that his blessing may go along with both, to the convincement of many, as yet strangers to this holy dispensation, and also to the edification of God’s church in general: who for his manifold and repeated mercies and blessings to his people, in this day of his great love, is worthy ever to
have the glory, honour, thanksgiving, and renown; and be it rendered and ascribed, with fear and reverence, through him in whom he is well pleased, his beloved Son and Lamb, our light and life, that sits with him upon the throne, world without end. Amen.
Says one that God has long since mercifully favoured with his fatherly visitation, and who was not disobedient to the heavenly vision and call; to whom the way of truth is more lovely and precious than ever, and that knowing the beauty and benefit of it above all worldly treasures, has chosen it for his chiefest joy, and therefore recommends it to thy love and choice, because he is with great sincerity and affection,