After I had travelled up and down in those countries, and had had
great meetings, I came to Swarthmore again. And when I had visited
Friends in those parts, I heard of a great meeting the priests were
to have at Ulverstone, on a lecture-day. I went to it, and into the
steeple-house in the dread and power of the Lord. When the priest
had done, I spoke among them the Word of the Lord, which was as a
hammer, and as a fire amongst them. And though Lampitt, the priest of
the place, had been at variance with most of the priests before, yet
against the truth they all joined together. But the mighty power of
the Lord was over all; and so wonderful was the appearance thereof,
that priest Bennett said the church shook, insomuch that he was
afraid and trembled. And when he had spoken a few confused words he
hastened out for fear it should fall on his head. Many priests got
together there; but they had no power as yet to persecute.
When I had cleared my conscience towards them, I went up to
Swarthmore again, whither came four or five of the priests. Coming to
discourse, I asked them whether any one of them could say he had ever
had the word of the Lord to go and speak to such or such a people.
None of them durst say he had; but one of them burst out into a
passion and said that he could speak his experiences as well as I.
I told him experience was one thing; but to receive and go with
a message, and to have a Word from the Lord, as the prophets and
apostles had had and done, and as I had done to them, this was
another thing. And therefore I put it to them again, "Can any of you
say you have ever had a command or word from the Lord immediately at
any time?" but none of them could say so.
Then I told them that the false prophets, the false apostles, and
the antichrists, could use the words of the true prophets, the true
apostles, and of Christ, and would speak of other men's experiences,
though they themselves never knew or heard the voice of God or
Christ; and that such as they might obtain the good words and
experiences of others. This puzzled them much, and laid them open.
At another time, when I was discoursing with several priests at Judge
Fell's house, and he was by, I asked them the same question,--whether
any of them had ever heard the voice of God or Christ, to bid him
go to such and such a people, to declare His word or message unto
them. Any one, I told them, that could but read, might declare the
experiences of the prophets and apostles, which were recorded in
the Scriptures. Thereupon Thomas Taylor,[59] an ancient priest, did
ingenuously confess before Judge Fell that he had never heard the
voice of God, nor of Christ, to send him to any people; but that he
spoke his experiences, and the experiences of the saints in former
ages, and that he preached. This very much confirmed Judge Fell in
the persuasion he had that the priests were wrong; for he had thought
formerly, as the generality of people then did, that they were sent
from God.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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