Then I went to a steeple-house hard by, where the priest and people
were in a great rage. This priest had threatened Friends what he
would do; but when I came he fled; for the Lord's power came over him
and them. Yea, the Lord's everlasting power was over the world, and
reached to the hearts of people, and made both priests and professors
tremble. It shook the earthly and airy spirit in which they held
their profession of religion and worship; so that it was a dreadful
thing to them when it was told them, "The man in leathern breeches is
come."[46] At the hearing thereof the priests in many places got out
of the way, they were so struck with the dread of the eternal power
of God; and fear surprised the hypocrites.
[46] This is the foundation for the famous passage on George
Fox, in Carlyle's "Sartor Resartus," Book III., Chap. 1. There
is, however, no foundation for Carlyle's picture of Fox cutting
and stitching his own leather suit. Sewel distinctly says that
these leather breeches had no connection with "his former leather
work." Croese says that his entire suit was leather. This form of
dress was not very unusual at the time, and was probably chosen
for its durability.
[At Pickering he stood in "the steeple-house yard" and told the
people what his mission was, with as clear a claim to a divine
commission as a Hebrew prophet would have made.]
I was sent of the Lord God of heaven and earth to preach freely, and
to bring people off from these outward temples made with hands, which
God dwelleth not in; that they might know their bodies to become the
temples of God and of Christ; and to draw people off from all their
superstitious ceremonies, Jewish and heathenish customs, traditions,
and doctrines of men; and from all the world's hireling teachers,
that take tithes and great wages, preaching for hire, and divining
for money, whom God and Christ never sent, as themselves confess when
they say that they never heard God's nor Christ's voice. I exhorted
the people to come off from all these things, directing them to the
Spirit and grace of God in themselves, and to the Light of Jesus in
their own hearts; that they might come to know Christ, their free
teacher, to bring them salvation, and to open the Scriptures to them.
Thus the Lord gave me a good opportunity to open things largely unto
them. All was quiet, and many were convinced; blessed be the Lord.
I passed to another town, where was another great meeting, the old
priest being with me; and there came professors of several sorts to
it. I sat on a hay-stack, and spoke nothing for some hours; for I
was to famish them from words. The professors would ever and anon be
speaking to the old priest, and asking him when I would begin, and
when I would speak? He bade them wait; and told them that the people
waited upon Christ a long while before He spoke.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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