From thence I passed up into the country, and the priest that called me brother (in whose school-house I had the meeting at Pickering,) went along with me. When we came into a town to bait, the bells rang. I asked what they rang for: and they said, for me to preach in the steeple-house. After some time I felt drawings that way; and as I walked to the steeple-house, I saw the people were gathered together in the yard. The old priest would have had me to go into the steeple-house; but I said, it was no matter. It was something strange to the people, that I would not go into that which they called the house of God. I stood up in the steeple-house yard, and declared to the people, that I came not to hold up their idol temples, nor their priests, nor their tithes, nor their augmentations, nor their priests’ wages, nor their Jewish and heathenish ceremonies and traditions (for I denied all these,) and told them that that piece of ground was no more holy than another piece of ground. I showed them that the apostles’ going into the Jews’ synagogues and temples, which God had commanded, was to bring people off from that temple, and those synagogues, and from the offerings, and tithes, and covetous priests of that time; that such as came to be convinced of the truth, and converted to it, and believed in Jesus Christ, whom the apostles preached, met together afterwards in dwelling-houses; and that all who preach Christ, the Word of life, ought to preach freely, as the apostles did, and as He had commanded. So 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, and 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 they never heard God’s voice, nor Christ’s voice. Therefore I exhorted the people to come off from all these things, and directed 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 amongst them to open things largely unto them. All was quiet, and many were convinced; blessed be the Lord!