O friends, lay these things to heart, and let them not seem light things to you. I write to you in love, to mind the laws of God and your own souls, and to do as the holy men of God did.” Great was my exercise and travail in spirit, during my imprisonment here, because of the wickedness that was in this town; for though some were convinced, yet the generality were a hardened people; and I saw the visitation of God’s love pass away from them. I mourned over them; and it came upon me to give forth the following lamentation for them:— “O Derby! as the waters run away when the flood-gates are up, so doth the visitation of God’s love pass away from thee, O Derby! Therefore look where thou art, and how thou art grounded; and consider, before thou art utterly forsaken. The Lord moved me twice, before I came to cry against the deceits and vanities that are in thee, and to warn all to look at the Lord, and not at man. The woe is against the crown of pride; the woe is against drunkenness and vain pleasures, and against them that make a profession of religion in words, yet are high and lofty in mind, and live in oppression and envy. O Derby! thy profession and preaching stink before the Lord. Ye profess a Sabbath in words, and meet together, dressing yourselves in fine apparel; you uphold pride. Thy women go with stretched-forth necks and wanton eyes, &c., which the true prophet of old cried against. Your assemblies are odious, and an abomination to the Lord: pride is set up, and bowed down to; covetousness abounds; and he that doeth wickedly is honoured: so deceit bears with deceit; and yet they profess Christ in words. O the deceit that is within thee! it doth even break my heart to see how God is dishonoured in thee, O Derby!” After I had seen the visitation of God’s love pass away from this place, I knew that my imprisonment here would not continue long; but I saw that when the Lord should bring me forth, it would be as the letting of a lion out of a den amongst the wild beasts of the forest. For all professions stood in a beastly spirit and nature, pleading for sin, and for the body of sin and imperfection, as long as they lived. They all raged, and ran against the life and Spirit which gave forth the Scriptures, which they professed in words. And so it was, as will appear hereafter.