‘Keep constantly to religious meetings amongst friends; but look to your affections, that you respect not persons, but the power and life of truth from whomsoever it comes; not minding the tickling of your affections, but the demonstration of the truth to your understandings and consciences; for that will abide, when flashes of affections will fade and come to nothing, after the words are ended.
‘Love one another truly, manifesting your love by good counsel, and being helpful to each other upon all occasions; being good examples to all you converse with, especially to your children, and those of your own families; that pride and vanity may not be countenanced by you, but rather reproved; remembering while they are under your government, you must give an account of the discharge of your duty to God towards them.
‘Lastly, Be always mindful of your latter end, and live as you would die, not knowing how soon your days may be finished in this world: and while you do live in it despise not the chastenings of the Lord, whatever they be he is pleased to visit you withal. I have been afflicted from my youth up, both inwardly and outwardly, but the God whom I served provided for me, when all my outward relations forsook me, none of them giving me any portion to begin the world withal. This I speak, to let you know, I shall leave more outwardly, even to the least of you than was left me by all my relations, &c. I need not mention this sharp affliction, beyond expression, in my old age, because, in some measure, you know it; but I could not have been without it, as the Lord hath showed me, or I have seen his wonders in the deeps; therefore I say again, despise not afflictions, but embrace them as messengers of peace to your souls, though displeasing to the flesh.
‘These things I commend unto you, out of true love to your souls, knowing how the vain mind of man little regards such advice as this I leave behind me; but by this advice I show my true love to you all, desiring God’s blessing upon it; to whom I commit you all, my dear children, and end my days
Your loving father and grandfather,
JOHN CROOK.’
Hertford, the first of the First month, 1698-99.
The sharp affliction he speaks of in this writing was more than one distemper, for the stone, gout, and cholic, attacked him sometimes sorely; and though this had been for a long time, yet he always behaved himself patiently, though his pain was sometimes so violent, that he was often heard to say, that did he not feel and witness inward power from the Lord, he could not subsist under his great pains. That of the stone was the greatest, which continued with him to his end; and yet he was not heard to utter any unsavoury word, or to cry out impatiently; but when the extremity of his fits were over, then he expressed his inward joy and peace, and so praised the Lord. He had an excellent gift in opening the mysteries of the holy Scriptures, so that he was like Apollos, of whom we find upon record, that he was an eloquent man, and mighty in the Scriptures. And by his zealous and effectual preaching, when he was in his strength of life, many were convinced of the truth. In his latter days he said sometimes that the furnace of affliction was of good use to purge away the dross and earthly part in us. And under the sorrow and grief he had concerning some of his offspring, he would sometimes comfort himself with the words of David, “Although my house be not so with God, yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure.” In his old age he was many times heard to say, ‘Many of the ancients are gone to their long home, and we are making haste after them: they step away before me, and I, that would go, cannot. Well, it will be my turn soon also.’ And then he seemed to rejoice in the consideration, that the time of his dissolution, to be freed from his sore distempers, approached apace. Yet in the latter part of his life he often appeared so strong in the spiritual warfare, that some judged that in some respect he might have said with Caleb, “As yet I am as strong this day, as I was in the day that Moses sent me; as my strength was then, even so is my strength now, for war, both to go out, and to come in.” About three weeks before his death, though he was weak in body, yet he said powerfully, and after a prophetical manner, ‘Truth must prosper, truth shall prosper, but a trying time must first come, and afterwards the glory of the Lord shall more and more appear.’ He continued in a sedate and truly Christian frame of mind to the last period of his life, and departed the 26th of the month called April, in the eighty-second year of his age, in his house at Hertford, where he had lived many years. I knew him in England, and he hath also been in Holland, so that I do not speak of one that was unknown to me.
1700.
George Keith, by vilifying the doctrine of the Quakers, was now so much in favour with the episcopal clergy, that he began to serve them as a vicar; having been ordained by the bishop of London about the year 1700. And since this seemed strange and wonderful to many, somebody, of what persuasion I do not know, made a collection of his sentiments concerning a national church, and its clergy, and what account he gave of their rites and ceremonies, from books and papers he had published many years before; to which the author gave this title, ‘Mr. George Keith’s Account of a National Church and Clergy, humbly presented to the bishop of London.’ To this were added some queries he once wrote concerning what is called the sacrament of the Lord’s supper. This account was now published in print, and presented to the bishop of London, ending with these words of the apostle, “If I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.”