Page Convincement by George Fox
- Margaret Fell, (1614-1702)
Friends for 300 Years, Howard B. Brinton
The next day being a lecture, or a fast-day, he [Fox] went to Ulverstone steeple-house, but came not in till people were gathered; I and my children had been a long time there before. And when they were singing before the sermon, he came in; and when they had done singing, he stood up upon a seat or form, and desired that he might have liberty to speak; and he that was in the pulpit said he might
And the first words that he spoke were as followeth:
"He is not a Jew that is one outward; neither is that circumcision which is outward; but he is a Jew that is one inward; and that is circumcision which of the heart."
And so he went one, and said, how that Christ was the Light of the world, and lighteth every man that cometh into the world; and that by this light they might be gathered to God, etc.
I stood up in my pew and wondered at his doctrine; for I had never heard such before.
And then he went on, and opened the Scriptures, and said, "the Scriptures were the prophets' words, and Christ's and the apostles' words, and what, as they spoke, they enjoyed and possessed, and had if from the Lord": and said, "then what had any to do with the Scriptures, but as they came to the Spirit that gave them forth? You will say, Christ saith this, and the apostles say this; but what canst thou say? Art thou a child of Light, and hast thou walked in the Light, and what thou speakest, is it inwardly from God?" etc.
This opened me so, that it cut me to the heart; and then I saw clearly we were all wrong. So I sat down in my pew again, and cried bitterly: and I cried in my spirit, to the Lord, "We are all thieves, we are all thieves; we have taken the Scriptures in words, and know nothing of them in ourselves."
So that served me, that I cannot well tell what he spoke afterwards; but he went on in declaring the false prophets, and priests, and deceivers of the people.
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Updated 5th Month, 15th Day, 1998