THE PREFACE; BEING A SUMMARY ACCOUNT OF THE DIVERS DISPENSATIONS OF GOD TO MEN, (10)

Wherefore, dear children, let me entreat you to shut your eyes at the temptations and allurements of this low and perishing world, and not suffer your affections to be captivated by those lusts and vanities that your fathers, for truth’s sake, long since turned their backs upon. But as you believe it to be the truth, receive it into your hearts, that you may become the children of God; so that it may never be said of you, as the Evangelist writes of the Jews of his time, that Christ, the true Light, “came to his own, but his own received him not; but to as many as received him, to them he gave power to become the children of God; which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” A most close and comprehensive passage to this occasion. You exactly and peculiarly answer to those professing Jews, in that you bear the name of God’s people, by being the children and wearing the form of God’s people; so that he, by his light in you, may be said to come to his own, and if you obey it not, but turn your back upon it, and walk after the vanities of your minds, you will be of those that receive him not, which, I pray God, may never be your case and judgment; but that you may be thoroughly sensible of the many and great obligations you lie under to the Lord for his love, and to your parents for their care; and with all your heart, and all your soul, and all your strength, turn to the Lord, to his gift and Spirit in you, and hear his voice, and obey it, that you may seal to the testimony of your fathers, by the truth and evidence of your own experience; that your children’s children may bless you, and the Lord for you, as those that delivered a faithful example, as well as record of the truth of God unto them. So will the grey hairs of your dear parents yet alive, go down to the grave with joy, to see you the posterity of truth, as well as theirs, and that not only their nature but spirit shall live in you when they are gone.

I shall conclude this Preface with a few words to those that are not of our communion, into whose hands this may come; especially those of our own nation.

Friends, as you are the sons and daughters of Adam, and my brethren after the flesh, many and earnest have been my desires and prayers to God on your behalf, that you may come to know your Creator to be your Redeemer and Restorer to the image that, through sin, you have lost, by the power and Spirit of his Son Jesus Christ, whom he hath given for the light and life of the world. And O that you who are called Christians, would receive him into your heart! for there it is you want him, and at that door he stands knocking, that you should let him in, but you do not open to him; you are full of other guests, so that a manger is his lot among you now, as well as of old. Yet you are full of profession, as were the Jews when he came among them, who knew him not, but rejected and evilly entreated him. So that if you come not to the possession and experience of what you profess, all your formality in religion will stand you in no stead in the day of God’s judgment.

I beseech you ponder with yourselves your eternal condition, and see what title, what ground and foundation you have for your Christianity; if more than a profession, and an historical belief of the gospel. Have you known the baptism of fire, and the Holy Ghost, and the fan of Christ that winnows away the chaff,—the carnal lusts and affections?—that divine leaven of the kingdom, that, being received, leavens the whole lump of man, sanctifying him throughout, in body, soul, and spirit? If this be not the ground of your confidence, you are in a miserable state.

You will say, perhaps, that though you are sinners, and live in the daily commission of sin, and are not sanctified, as I have been speaking, yet you have faith in Christ, who has borne the curse for you, and in him you are complete by faith; his righteousness being imputed to you.

But, my friends, let me entreat you not to deceive yourselves in so important a point, as is that of your immortal souls. If you have true faith in Christ, your faith will make you clean, it will sanctify you: for the saints’ faith was their victory. By this they overcame sin within, and sinful men without. And if thou art in Christ, thou walkest not after the flesh, but after the Spirit, whose fruits are manifest. Yea, thou art a new creature, new made, new fashioned after God’s will and mould; old things are done away, and, behold, all things are become new; new love, desires, will, affections, and practices. It is not any longer thou that livest, thou disobedient, carnal, worldly one; but it is Christ that liveth in thee; and to live is Christ, and to die is thy eternal gain; because thou art assured, that “thy corruptible shall put on incorruption, and thy mortal immortality:” and that thou hast a glorious house, eternal in the heavens, that will never wax old or pass away. All this follows being in Christ, as the sensation of heat follows fire, and light the sun.

Therefore have a care how you presume to rely upon such a notion, as that you are in Christ, whilst in your old fallen nature. For what communion hath light with darkness, or Christ with Belial? Hear what the beloved disciple tells you; “If we say we have fellowship with God, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth.” That is, if we go on in a sinful way, are captivated by our carnal affections, and are not converted to God, we walk in darkness, and cannot possibly have any fellowship with God. Christ clothes them with his righteousness, that receive his grace in their hearts, and deny themselves, and take up his cross daily, and follow him. Christ’s righteousness makes men inwardly holy, of holy minds, wills, and practices. It is nevertheless Christ’s, because we have it; for it is ours, not by nature, but by faith and adoption. It is the gift of God. But still, though not ours, as of or from ourselves, for in that sense it is Christ’s, for it is of and from him; yet it is ours, and must be ours in possession, efficacy, and enjoyment, to do us any good, or Christ’s righteousness will profit us nothing. It was after this manner, that he was made to the primitive Christians, righteousness, sanctification, justification, and redemption; and if ever you will have the comfort, kernel, and marrow of the Christian religion, thus you must come to learn and obtain it.

Now, my friends, by what you have read, and will read in what follows, 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 know it, as we 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, yet 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.

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 anything else, unless you find him whom your souls want, and desire 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.

And what does this blessed Light do for you? 1. 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 estate he is in. 2. 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. 3. After this it will bring you to the holy watch, to take care that you do so no more, 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 communion with the Father and with the Son you will know, and the efficacy of the blood of cleansing, even the blood of Jesus Christ, that immaculate Lamb, which speaketh 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.

To conclude; behold the testimony and doctrine of the people called Quakers! Behold their practice and discipline! and behold the blessed man and men that were sent of God in this excellent work and service! all which will be more particularly expressed in the ensuing annals of the 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 it, to the convincing of many, as yet strangers to this holy dispensation, and also to the edification of the church of God 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 whom 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 who knowing the beauty and benefit of it above all worldly treasure, has chosen it for his chiefest joy; and therefore recommends it to thy love and choice, because he is with great sincerity and affection thy soul’s friend,