Gleanings from the Works of George Fox — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Gleanings from the Works of George Fox
John Stuart Mill · en
There came a priest and some people with him to me and he asked me if I
was grown up to perfection and I said I was what I was by the grace of
God; and the common-prayer priest said it was a civil answer and he said
that if we do say that we have no sin, the truth is not in us; what did
I say to this? And I said if we say that we have not sinned we make him
a liar who came to destroy sin and take away sin and so there is a time
to see that people have sinned and that they have sin and to confess
their sin and to forsake it; and the blood of Christ to cleanse from all
sin. And it was asked him whether Adam was not perfect before he fell,
and all God's works were they not perfect? And the priest said yes. But
the priest said we might always be striving and this was a sad striving
and never overcome. But I told him that Paul that cried out against the
body of death after thanked God, through Jesus Christ who gave him the
victory; and there was no condemnation to them that was in Christ Jesus.
So there was a time of crying out and a time of praising. And the priest
said there might be a perfection as Adam and a falling from it and I
said there was a perfection in Christ beyond Adam and should never fall;
and it was the work of the ministers of Christ to present every man
perfect in Christ and for the perfecting of them they had their gifts
from Christ and they that denied perfection they denied the work of ...
(illegible) the gifts of Christ who was for that end for the perfecting,
broken.
(_Journal Friends' Hist. Soc._, Vol. V., p. 170, from a Fox
autograph.)
A Customary Word.
And to all ye that say, God give us grace and we shall refrain from our
sin, there ye have got a tempting customary word, for the free grace of
God hath appeared to all men and this is the grace of God hath appeared
to all men and this is the grace of God which shows the ungodliness and
worldly lusts.
(_Works_, IV., p. 21.)
Temptation.