God, to give up in obedience to follow Christ Jesus; to believe in and obey his Light given me; and to wait therein diligently, to receive power from Him to become a true child of God; for to as many as truly receive Christ the Son of God, He gives power to become sons of God.

I saw it was my place to retire inward to the Light, to the Grace of God, the immortal incorruptible Seed, the ingrafted Word, which is our Divine Principle, and frequently testified of among the said people, according to Holy Scripture and my mind being turned to this Light, I came plainly to see my inward and outward state; how much fallen into a state of degeneration, and how much depraved, corrupted, and alienated from the Life of Christ and of God. The very vanity of mind and thoughts, wherein I had been wandering and estranged from the Light and Life of Christ, became my great burden and exercise to be delivered from, that I might be truly renewed in the spirit of my mind, and therein joined to the Lord. Being persuaded to wait in the Light, in the way of his judgments, and to bear and submit to his fatherly chastisements and reproofs of instruction-believing, that Sion must be redeemed through judgment, and her converts with righteousness-vain thoughts,

imaginations, and wanderings of the mind, became a suffering and burden to me, and I earnestly sought the Lord for power to suppress them, and that He would give me victory over them all, and stay my mind upon Himself, that I might enjoy inward peace with Him.

In waiting upon God, and sincerely seeking after Him with my mind inwardly retired, and my soul desiring and breathing after his Name and Power, He was graciously pleased often to renew his merciful visitations to my poor soul, and in the midst of judgment and chastisements to remember mercy, that He might be feared; and the sense hereof did soften, break, and tender my heart, and cause me to be the more mindful of the work of the Lord our God, and the more to consider the operation of his Divine Hand, whose dealing with me was in judgment and mercy; his Eternal Word, by judgment, caused fear and trembling in his presence; and by showing mercy, brokenness and true tenderness of heart. And in the lively remembrance thereof, I find still great cause to ascribe the praise and glory to his excellent Name, power, and Divine goodness, manifest through his dear Son, even the Son of his Love, our blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

SECTION II.

General prejudice against the principles of the New Society-His parents' views-His own progress and experience, and a statement of his principles and sentiments in regard to Christ as our sacrifice-As the Light of the world. Necessity of repentance-Value of the Holy Scriptures-The New Covenant-Gospel Ministry.

Many of the Presbyterian priests, in those early days, in Westmoreland and other northern parts of England, appeared very envious against us, in the years 1652, 1653, 1654, &c. ; and, in their lectures and sermons, much bestirred themselves to revile and reproach the Quakers and their ministers, terming them deceivers and antichrists, come in the last times; gathering what evil and false reports they could against us, and all to incense their credulous hearers ; thereby setting both neighbours and families at variance and discord, like invidious sowers thereof.

I have known some of their hearers, even of my own relations and others, when they have come from their public worship, and from hearing a preachment against Quakers, who have come full frought therewith, to talk and prate against them, oftentimes nonsense sometimes I have returned them a Christian answer, which

when rejected, I have many times found it my place to be silent, and let them clamour and scoff on ; the leaders of the people, even those priests, caused them to err, and with their sour leaven, soured the spirits of many into enmity.

My parents were hurt by them, and the more influenced against me for a time; until the Lord turned their hearts and opened their understandings, to see better than they could by following their blind guides, whose work was to make divisions among relations; yet their trouble and grief came more from their priest's influencing them against us, and fear of my misfortune or losing preferment in the world, than from any prejudice against me or my religious persuasion; for they retained a real affection to me: and in the time of my being about three years absent from them in the ministry and service of the Truth, and in that time suffering several hard imprisonments and otherwise for the same, in Norfolk and Suffolk, were much reconciled; and when I returned to visit them they were loving, and their understandings and hearts were opened toward me and my Friends, who came to visit me at their house.

My mother, some years before her decease, was really convinced of the TRUTH, and became a Friend in her heart. And my father seeing the corruption, pride, and avarice of the priests,

retained a love toward Friends till the end of his days. Likewise my sister Anne, before the death of her mother, became a friend to truth and Friends, and continued an honest, loving, and serviceable woman, until death.

It is observable, when the Priests, could not prevail to stop the progress and spreading of the blessed Truth, and Power of Christ, nor prevent the increase of our Friends by all their reviling sermons and preaching against us, their work was to endeavour to incense the magistrates, justices, and the government, against the People called Quakers; whereupon divers justices and officers were instigated to persecution, and imprisoned many of our Friends in Kendal and Appleby Goals in Westmoreland, for bearing testimony against them. And I was moved in the dread and fear of the Lord, to bear public testimony against their wickedness in several of their places of worship in Westmoreland, before I travelled into the south parts of England, yet the Lord was pleased to preserve me then, from any harm or imprisonment.

Some time after I was conversant among our friends, and frequented the meetings to which I belonged in Westmoreland and Yorkshire, chiefly between the years 1652 and 1654, I was much inwardly exercised in waiting upon the Lord in them. We had but little preaching, our