Three Apostles of Quakerism: Popular Sketches of Fox, Penn and BarclayRhodes, Benjamin
History
Three Apostles of Quakerism: Popular Sketches of Fox, Penn and Barclay
Rhodes, Benjamin
Barclay, Robert, 1648-1690; Fox, George, 1624-1691; Penn, William, 1644-1718; Society of Friends
[1] A similar experience is to be found in the unpublished memoir
of that pious and accomplished Quakeress, Miss P. H. Gurney, p. 43.
"I was painfully struck with the want of any sign of true devotion
or spiritual mindedness in the several congregations I attended in
London, both in preachers and hearers. Had I gone, as I once felt some
inclination to do, to that called St. Mary Woolnoth, (Jno. Newton's) I
might have found an exception to this description; but being accidently
prevented, I have sometimes thought it was in the ordering of
Providence that whatever of spiritual religion was then circulating in
the national church, I was not permitted to find it, though I sought it
with the most earnest desire of success." Miss Gurney took these facts
as a proof that God intended that she should turn Quakeress; but surely
the true explanation of these providences is that God will have us look
to Him, and not rest unduly on any man or human system. He spoils our
idols that we may worship only Him.
Every experienced pastor must have met with such cases. Until God
satisfies the soul the words of men are vain; when His hour has come,
the truth which brings light and peace is often one that has been
explained and urged before. George Fox had to learn that it is God's
work to enlighten, that there is still to be enjoyed a real guidance
of the Holy Spirit, resulting in the solution of difficulties and
mysteries, in a clear apprehension of the truth, and a soul-satisfying
sense of its power. And if the lesson was slowly and hardly learnt, it
resulted in a clearer insight into the truth, and more fitness to deal
with other tried souls.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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