I was sent to turn people from darkness to the Light, that they might
receive Christ Jesus; for to as many as should receive Him in His
light, I saw He would give power to become the sons of God; which
power I had obtained by receiving Christ. I was to direct people to
the Spirit that gave forth the Scriptures, by which they might be led
into all truth, and up to Christ and God, as those had been who gave
them forth.
Yet I had no slight esteem of the holy Scriptures. They were very
precious to me; for I was in that Spirit by which they were given
forth; and what the Lord opened in me I afterwards found was
agreeable to them. I could speak much of these things, and many
volumes might be written upon them; but all would prove too short to
set forth the infinite love, wisdom, and power of God, in preparing,
fitting, and furnishing me for the service to which He had appointed
me; letting me see the depths of Satan on the one hand, and opening
to me, on the other hand, the divine mysteries of His own everlasting
kingdom.
When the Lord God and His Son Jesus Christ sent me forth into the
world to preach His everlasting gospel and kingdom, I was glad that I
was commanded to turn people to that inward Light, Spirit, and Grace,
by which all might know their salvation and their way to God; even
that Divine Spirit which would lead them into all truth, and which I
infallibly knew would never deceive any.[33]
[33] The soul's own assurance of salvation was well proclaimed
by Luther, but the high and joyous experience was well-nigh lost
in Calvinistic England. Fox reaffirms the privilege of this
experience. He proclaims no man's infallibility, but rather the
infallibility of the Spirit, in union with which a man may know
that he pleases God.
But with and by this divine power and Spirit of God, and the Light of
Jesus, I was to bring people off from all their own ways, to Christ,
the new and living way; and from their churches, which men had made
and gathered, to the Church in God, the general assembly written in
heaven, of which Christ is the head. And I was to bring them off from
the world's teachers, made by men, to learn of Christ, who is the
Way, the Truth, and the Life, of whom the Father said, "This is my
beloved Son, hear ye Him"; and off from all the world's worships, to
know the Spirit of Truth in the inward parts, and to be led thereby;
that in it they might worship the Father of spirits, who seeks such
to worship Him. And I saw that they that worshipped not in the Spirit
of Truth, knew not what they worshipped.
And I was to bring people off from all the world's religions, which
are vain, that they might know the pure religion; might visit the
fatherless, the widows, and the strangers, and keep themselves from
the spots of the world. Then there would not be so many beggars,
the sight of whom often grieved my heart, as it denoted so much
hard-heartedness amongst them that professed the name of Christ.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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