The History of the Rise, Increase, and Progress of the Christian People Called Quakers: Intermixed with Several Remarkable Occurrencs.Sewel, William
History
The History of the Rise, Increase, and Progress of the Christian People Called Quakers: Intermixed with Several Remarkable Occurrencs.
Sewel, William
Society of Friends -- History -- Early works to 1800
Some time after he went back into Nottinghamshire, and there it pleased
the Lord to show him, that the natures of those things which were
hurtful without, were also within, in the minds of wicked men; and
that the natures of dogs, swine, vipers, and those of Cain, Ishmael,
Esau, Pharoah, &c. were in the hearts of many people. But since this
did grieve him, he cried to the Lord, saying, ‘Why should I be thus,
seeing I was never addicted to commit those evils?’ And inwardly it
was answered him, ‘That it was needful he should have a sense of all
conditions; how else should he speak to all conditions?’ He also saw
there was an ocean of darkness and death; but withal an infinite
ocean of light and love, which flowed over the ocean of darkness; in
all which he perceived the infinite love of God. About that time it
happened that walking in the town of Mansfield, by the steeple-house
side, it was inwardly told him, ‘That which people trample upon must
be thy food;’ and at the saying of this, it was opened to him, that it
was the life of Christ people did trample upon; and that they fed one
another with words, without minding that thereby the blood of the Son
of God was trampled under foot. And though it seemed at first strange
to him, that he should feed on that which the high professors trample
upon, yet it was clearly opened to him how this could be.
Then many people came far and near to see him; and though he spoke
sometimes to open religious matters to them, yet he was fearful of
being drawn out by them. Now the reason of people thus flocking to
him might proceed partly from this: there was one Brown, who upon his
death-bed spoke by way of prophecy many notable things concerning
George Fox, and among the rest, ‘that he should be made instrumental
by the Lord to the conversion of people.’ And of others that then were
something in show, he said, ‘That they should come to nothing; which
was fulfilled in time, though this man did not live to see it, for he
was not raised from his sickness. But after he was buried, George Fox
fell into such a condition, that he not only looked like a dead body,
but unto many that came to see him he seemed as if he had been really
dead; and many visited him for about fourteen days time, who wondered
to see him so much altered in countenance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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