"George Fox": An Address Delivered to the Society of Friends

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■1 ’
AN ADDRESS

DELIVERED TO THE SIKUETY OK FRIENDS, j

BY C. H. SPtTEOEON,

Jtl’llN’SniBE UnUSKJlffilLNii llm.-ili BISHOI’suate srilEET,

Om TuKIPbAlf Kvi(«iSM. NovtnBBa Dm, ISflO.

niII.AlH-:[.t*MlA:
IlKSKV LOSdSTRETIt. 1S3S UHKaiSUT STRKBT.

HENRY LONGSTKETH,

133B Ohestnat Street, Fhikddphia,

“OLD BANNER e€sAYS,”

I ff lioll will hi (V|cfiwll9l aitir SHI) iM’.aU’ or in bjiiiiii rnliimof.

No. 1. WljatisTmtli?

Nil. 2. Tho CliristittD Priesthonil,

No. 3. PrimilitB Christianity Rnjiveii.

No 4. Gospel Principles.

No, 5. Life, and Its Diaciplinf!,

No, 6. Josopii Sturge, the Ohristian Citizen.

Do. 7. Christian Baptism.

No. 8. The Lord’s Suppsr.

No. 9, The Ohristian’a Heritage.

No. 10. Biniel Wheeler, thoOhristiMi Missionaifr

No. 11. Ooagregational Worship.

No. 12. TbeconstrainiQglnHuenceof thoHolySpirit

No. 13. The Piirposoa of the Oomiug of Clirit,

No 14. Qtospel Miniatry.

I’riM (Wa uuiiu pur uopy, itnti ..tw dollar bomuj. I’iiey wit] ba fiunt P6!iT’t.lt» ou OMcipE of ch« UWMt.V. eorgc iax.”

AN ADDRESS

DELIVERED TO THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS,

BY O. H. SFURGEOjSr,

BEVONSHIEE HOUSE MEETING HOUSE, BISHOPSGATE STREET,

LONDON,

Ok Tuesday Evening, November 6th, 1866.

CHARLES GILPm, Esq., M. P., in the Chair.

When first it waa in my heart to address you, I did nst-At all suppose that it would le in the form of a lecture.. T thought it possible, if God so ordered it, that I might have spoken to jou for about ten minutes or a quarter of an hour,. upon a apiritual subject which for two or three years has pressed very heavily upon my mind. It seemed to me that yon, esteemed Friends, were a picked body of men, peculiarly set apart. to be the advocates of spiritual religion, that you had suffered long for it, that your history had been highly honorable to yourselves in years past, that you atill loved the spirituality- of godliness, and were not to be bewitcd by the formalism of this age; but I thought that your testimony was hardly loud enough, that though it was clear as a bell, it was not shrill as a clarion; and I hoped also that if God should put it into yaux hearts to permit me to say a few earnest words to you. there might be young mon amongst you who might be stirred up to lift up their voice like a trumpet, to cry aloud and spare not, and to tell to this age its sins and iniquities.

This has not happened, but I have been asked to deliver a. lecture instead, and the topic chosen is George Fox, Now, to. lecture Friends upon George Fox is an extraordinary, proposition, and I do not at present see that I was prudent in my choice.. You must all of you know much more about that honored man than I could possibly tell you, and I can only aay that if you do not you should, for his “Life” well repays the earnest student.

* It is a rich mine. Every page of it is precious as solid gold. Books now-a-days are hammered out, and you get but little metal in acres of leaf; but the ‘’Journal’* of George Fox contains ingots of gold, truths which require to be thought of month by month before you can get to the bottom of them. To talk to you about George Fox is bringing coals to Newcastle, and doing a work of supererogation; but nevertheless, as I am to do it — though it is not what I wanted to do — we must try to make a cross between what we wished and what is announced. We must have something like an address, and yet it must be a lecture; well then, I should not wonder if it be most like a sermon after all. I have heard of a man, a Harp Alley sign painter, who was in the habit of painting red lions, and had painted so many red lions, that when one day an innkeeper asked him to paint an angel, he said, “Well, I will paint you an angel, but it will be very much like a red lion.*’ So, this “lecture,** as it is to be called, will be very like a sermon, and yet not altogether very widely apart from an address or a lecture. I am amongst those who bear the name of “Friends.** I have no doubt that you will honestly wear that title to night, and that I shall find you friends in listening to what I want to say. If I should find any fault with you, you will remember that you did not ask me to come here to flatter you, and I know you do not desire that I should do so. If I say anything that is wrong, you will put it down to my ignorance of the matter; but, at all events, you will not suspect me of unfriendliness, for I have no object in standing here to night but, in the fear of the Lord, to say some things which, by the Holy Spirit*8 power, may be useful to this audience, to your Society, and to the world.

I shall not be expected to-night to enter into the doctrinal opinions of George Fox. Many of you well know the opinions which I have set forth, and which I believe to be contained in God*s Word; and you know also that these are very different from the theological teachings of George Fox. It would not be profitable to enter into controversy to-night, nor are we at all in the frame of mind for it, and I shall not, therefore, introduce any discussion of the doctrinal teachings of George Fox. Indeed, doctrinal teaching does not appear to me to have been George Fox*s/(9rte. We have to look to his successors and his immediate disciples for a fuller and clearer laying down of the theological basis of your Society, than we find in Fox himself. J look upon George Fox rather as a practical than as a doc- ‘.trinal man, and as experimentally carrying out in his owh life the work of the Spirit of God rather than as being a creedmaker, or as fashioning formnliB or framing propositions to whioh any man might be required to subscribe. I suppose that Fox wouhl object to your own creed, I hare the notion that he would object to any creed, as a creed; and that even if he agreed to what was laid down, he would object to its being laid down at all. I think he would Bay, “No, these things may be true enough, but, lest by any means this creed should be used to hind another maji’s conscience, I will not agree to it; I believe it and receive it, but I will not subscribe to it, lest it should become, as all creeds do become in process of time, mere dead letters and ins tram en ts of tyranny.”

Looking through George Pox’s life, and Tiewing him as the great champion of purely” spiritual worship, one is inclined to say, with William Penn, that his epitaph might well be, “Many sons have done virtuously, tut thou excellost them all;” for though in hia own a.ge and in his own time there were many bright stars, yet there were some points in which George Fox outshone them all. There were some particular truths which it was given to him to feel more intensely and to set forth more vehemently and constantly than any other man of bis own time, or than any other man since his time, more especially the great truth that religion is of tho spirit, that it is an inward thing, and is not to be judged, and weighed and accounted of according to the externals of a man but according to his inmost soul.

When George Fox appeared it was a singularly perilous age for true godliness, when a new band of witnesses must arise, or truth would be put to shame. Jast as every year, early in the spring, you see the young buds appear, all greon and vigoToue, and then those young bodlings swell until they burst into leaf and flower, but towards aututnn begin to decay and fall, and other and younger buds follow them — so, very much has it been in the history of Christ’s church in the world. There has blossomed in the church a body of spiritual men, full of vigor and freshness; these have endured a stern fight of afflictions, like the young buds in the early frosts of spring. They have borne it, they have grown under it, th«y have expanded, they have come to perfection, and there has been a delightful time of summer. But, alasl the decay of autumn has followed, and this vigor of godliness has declined, and another more spiritual band of men has followed them, pushed them off, and taken up their place. One band of men, fully spiritual, has for a time maintained the truth, but has then gradually declined through success; for so it is with human nature, that when we cease to be persecuted, when we get to feel that we are in easy circumstancea, we lose the vigor of gra«e which we once possessed, and another and more faithful brotherhood take our place. Perhaps it will always be BO, and after one backsliding generation there will arise a more earnest people, and another, and yet another, until the end of the dispensation, so that God shall never lack a spiritual seed in the world, to keep alive vital godliness.

Now it so happened that the Puritans, who had been like the spring buds and had blossomed, were getting into the sere and yellow leaf; and the Independents, and Baptists, and other sects, who were at one time thoroughly and even remarkably spiritual, were growing worldly, political, and vainglorious; the evangelical professors had come to feel that they were numerous and powerful; they had an opportunity of grasping the carnal sword; they embraced that opportunity, and’ from that moment very many of them lost the spirituality for which they had been eminent. The danger was lest the evangelical sects should quietly settle down in one State Church, make a scramble for the good things of the Ecclesiastical Establishment, and preach each one after its own fashion, in the numbness of death rather than in the power ot life. It did not quite come to that, but it did seem as if it would do so. The very men who were once most vehement for liberty when they were down-trodden, were ready to put down others when they had the opportunity, and those who had vijidicated the spirituality of Christ’s religion were about to fall into formalism as soon as they had the opportunity of escaping from the galling yoke of oppression and persecution. At that very moment Ujd sent into the world George Fox, who must have been the most troublesome of men to those good easy souls who counted upon a quiet season of sleep. They had said, “Soul, take thine ease; thou hast much goods laid up for many years.’* It was by the mouth of George Fox that God said to each one of them,” Thou fool! ‘* Very soon declining professors found that another people would spring up to take their place, and that if they left the separated path and began to minfle with the world and to war with carnal weapons, God would nd another people who should stand alone and vindicate his truth against all comers. George Fox, it seems to me, was a blessing, not to you alone, but to the whole of Christendom. He was sent of God, not only with a view to this Society in after years, but to the Christian church at large of that time, and to the church of God in all times. I do believe that under God, directly and indirectly, perhaps more indirectly than direct ly, George Fox was the means of driving out from their nests those who were very willing to have feathered those nests well, and to have taken their rest. He stood up in the face of the Christian Church, and said to it ‘No, thou shalt not do- this!

Thou fihalt not conform thyself to the world; thou shall not go into an unholy alliance with the State; there shall still be in the midst of thee a spiritaa! people who shall bear their protest that Christ’s kingdom is not of this world, and that religion standeth not in forma and ceremonies, but ia a matter connected with the inner man, and is the work of God’a Spirit in the heart.” You will judge, therefore, what my idea of Fox is when I have said that I look upon him as having been sent from our heavenly I”a ther upon the important mission of Bavi«g the Christian church at a particular juncture, when, through having obtained the possession of State power, and being much exercised with the brawls of rival creeds and contentions upon outward ceremonies, the inward power was declining, and the church waa likely to become absorbed into the world, or to set up a dead formalism which is neither acceptable to God nor serviceable to man.

Now, who was this man whom God thus raised up? I cannot pretend to go through his life; besides you know it all; but if one might put a finger on one of the most beautiful events of his life, one would single out Ms conversion. He had a godly mother, but yet he needed conversion. He was an excellent lad, naturally disposed to everything that was serious, not at all given to the usual vanities of youth, not undutiful, not likely to run into vice, or even into ordinary follies; and yet the truth, was applicable to him, “Ye must be born Hgain,” He was not exactly the kind of child that we would wish all our children to be, fur a little of the natural sportiveness of youth, when it is not associated with sin, makes the family hearth happy, and the prattle of childhood we would out restrain: George was a special child, a prophet in his youth, a Mosea acceptable with God, and strangely enough, his parents thought to put him into the priesthood of the Church of England. As Moaes’ supposed parents would have made him king of Egypt, who waa to be Egypt’s greatest plague: so Fox’s piirents would fain have made him & helper of the Established Church, who was to help to tread it under foot. But notwithstanding the gentleness of his disposition and the excellence of iii a deportment, like our own children, he needeil conversion, and that conversion, in God’s gra«e, came. Ho has given us a very interesting account of how the Lord met with him in his solitary walks and musings; how sometimes in a hollow tree, or in the opi-n fields, God was pleased to reveal to him the disease of his nature, to direct him to the precious blood of Jesus, and to lead him to put his trust where I hope we are all resting, where we must rest if we would enter heaven, upon the finished work of our dear Redeemer. Ha was terribly d cast down, just as moat of God’s children ara when first they arise and go to their Father. He waa bewildered, perplexed and afflicted by those from whom he expected light and comfort. He tried to trust where you and I once looked in vain for succor, namely in an arm of flesh and in carnal confidences. He went to the supposed ministers of Christ, and found them to be miserable comforters. Some of them may have been real ministers of Christ, but they were either in a bad humor or were not skilled in dealing with disordered minds; at all events, they wen not able to meet the peculiarly deep and solemn exercises of this singular young man, whose “verilies were as true as other men’s oaths, and whose conscience was wounded by matters which were sport to less spiritual minds. He found one of these divines as hollow as an empty cask, and another told him to overcome his distress of mind by smoking tobacco and singing psalms. He obtained from a third what is most excellent advice to any young man who can afford it, the recommendation to get married; another bade him join the volunteers. “As he that poureth vinegar upon nitre, so is he that singeth songs to a sad heart.” Poor remedies these for a distressed conscience! Alas for the physicians who prescribe tobacco smoke and bleeding as cures for a sin-sick soul! And yet what can the world do more for souls who are under the convincing power of God*s Spirit? What remedies dost thou know of, poor blind world? Thou canst not open the eyes of thine own blind sons and daughters; how then canst thou lead the children of light in the way of peace? “One only hand, the pierced hand, can heal the sinner’s woe.” Fox, after going to one professor and another, inquiring as to this and that, at last found peace where we too found it, if we really have it, namely, from the love of the Lord Jesus. There is one passage in his “Journal” which has been quoted thousands of times, but you will not object to hear it again, it deserves to be printed in letters of gold.

“But, as I had forsaken all the priests, so I left the separate preachers also, and those called the most experienced people; for I saw there was none among them all that could speak to my condition. And when all my hope in them and in all men was gone, so that I had nothing outwardly to help me, nor could tell what to do, then, oh then, I heard a voice which said, * There is One, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition.’ And when I heard it, my heart did leap for joy. Then the Lord did let me see why there was none upon the earth that could speak to my condition; namely, that 1 might give him all the glory. For all are concluded under sin, and shut up in unbelief as I had been, that Jesus Christ might have the pre-eminence, who

enlightens and gives grace an<J faith and power. Thna when God doth work, who shall let itV And this I know experimentally. My desires after the Lord grew stronger, and zeal in the pure knowledge of God and of Christ alone, without the help of any man, book or writing.”

All true conversions are after that same fashion essentially and radically. AH men do not pass through the same depths of sorrow in coining to Christ, but they all have to come to him empty-handed, feeling that “Cursed is he that trusteth in man, and mnketh flesh his arm.” There must be a stripping before there will be a clothing; there mut he an emptying of self before there can “bo a filling with the Spirit’s power, and George Fo.^ found it so. Have we all been led in this right way? How like the finding peace in the caae of Fox is to the way in which John Bunyan describes it in his “Pilgrim’s Progress.” There stands the poor burdened wretch who fain would go on the pilgrimage to the Celestial City, but finds it hard work to toil thither while bowed down with a load of sin. He sees before Jihe eye of his mind the atoning sacrifice of Jesus, and aa he looks to the cross, suddenly the strings which hold his burden to his shoulders begin to crack, and the burden rolls into the sepulchre, so that he sees it no more. “Whereupon,” writes Bunyiin, “he gave three great leaps for joy, and went on his way singing.” We have not forgotten those three great leaps which some of us gave in the day when Jesus took our sins away, when he became to us all our salvation and all our desire — Christ in ua the hope of glory. It strikes me that George Fox would never have been the man he was, nor such an instrument in the hand of God for usefulness, if he had not been led about in the wilderness of self-despair, and made to see the dark chambers of imagery of his own natural heart. When our heavenly Captain means to use a sword, he passes it through a series of annealings to make the steel hard, so that it may not snap in the day of battle, and he passed George Fox through all these annealings in his inward conflicts. Why, how could he fear the face of man when he had feared the face of God, and been made to quake and tremble beneath his awful presence? He who has heard a lion roar wilt not shake at the voice of a sparrow or the buzz of a fly. Why should he tremble at what man could do to him when he had felt the arrows of the Almighty sticking in his heart and drinking up the life-blood of his soul? and a man who has had dealings with Almighty God. and has been in the secret place of thunder, and heard God’s wrath go forth against him, and then inwardly seen the tempest spend itself upon the person of the Saviour, such a man can look bis fellow-creattire in the face without trepidation. He has learned to fear God, and he has, therefore, nothing else to fear. Would Martin Luther have been so blazing a torch if he had not been thrust into the fire? If it had not been for that dark period when the monk was painfully climbing up and down Pilate’s staircase, seeking rest, but finding none, would he have so plainly said, “By the works of the law there shall no flesh living be justified?’* Can we imagine honest John Banyan writing that noble allegory, the “Pilgrim’s Progress,” if it had not been for those years of soul-distraction when he was looking to the broken cisterns of the creature, and learning to his sorrow that they held no water? Temptation, adversity and soul-trouble are the training exercises for the heroes of the truth. Upon the wheel of soul-conflict the vessel is fashioned for the Master’s use.

After his conversion, George Fox took quite a separate path among the Christians of his age, and those who look at the time in which he lived cannot blame him, although sect-making and seclusion are not in themselves commendable. If every young man here to-night should set up as a separate religionist, I am not sure that he would deserve to be commended for it, for I find that those people who belong to no sect at all are each one a sect to himself, and in their unsectarian zeal they make sects by wholesale, and foolishly hope to create union by fomenting division. On the whole, it is best for the present distress that each man should unite with those Christian people who appear to him to walk most according to the Scriptures, and have the most spiritual life; not separating ourselves for mere novelty or love of singularity, lest we be found following our own devices whilst we imagine that we are following the Spirit of God. However, supposing it to be your firm conviction that no man has a right to rule another in matters of conscience, and that you found all the sects more or less approving of legislative interference in religion, which would you unite with? Consistency makes you answer, “None at all.” You would say, “No, if I unite with a Christian society, I am to some extent accountable for what is done by that society, and I cannot share the responsibility of actions and opinions which lead to persecution.” When Episcopalians clipped the ears of Puritans, what spiritual man would become an Episcopalian? When Presbyterians hated toleration and turned the dungeon-key on lovers of the Liturgy, how could those who hated oppression join with them? Although our heart is with all thos who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity, yet if they do these naughty things we cannot unite with them. Moreover, George Fox’s doctrinal views were such

that he could Boarcely have conBOi-ted with any then existing Ohristittn denomination. Be those views right or wrong, ha ■woul<J iisive been a dishonest man to suppress them; and if ho received them, as he believed he did, from God, if he had not held ihemand proclaimed them he would have been a traitor to hiB trust. If he could not be fa.ithfal in visible communion with others, what could he do but walk with God, and before men walk alone? George Fox had a very clear perception that Christ’s kingdom could not be a worldly one, whereas many profesBora in his age coveted a worldly church. The smallest sects were against a national church only because their church was not likely to be selected, but most professors held as a theory that if their church could be established it would be the most proper thing in the world, — “a consummation devoutly to be wished.” George Fox thought that a kingdom of this world could not be the kingdom of Christ, and that enforced support of ministers by State aid was only fit for hirelings and false prophets. I have sometimes said that there was an old super-Btition that the royal hand would heal disease, but that the truth was far otherwise, for whenever the king puts his hand on the church of God it causes disease. Never has any more evil event happened to the church of God than when that baptized heathen Constiintine pretended to he a Christian, and set up Christianity ilB a State Church. Upon this matter thj whole spirit of Fox’s teaching is decided nnil clear. Besides, Fox was a man with so many angles and corners that he was best alone, or with others who would recognize his gigantic spiritual proportions. He could not do as some people do, put his conscience into his pocket and aay nothing about it. He had an awkward kind of coiwcience for that age, and it would he still more awkward in the present state of things. He would act straight-forwardly, his mind was devoid of that double-acting, rotatory machinery which is found to be so lisetul now-a-days when men claim to be honest, and yet declare that black is white and that white is black, and that it does not signify if both be blue aa long as they pay. Words, when they refer to religious truths, are in some quarters treated as if they were cards fur men to shuffle, making them mean anything or nothing as the case may require. Fox did not understand double meanings. He believed that words meant something, and when he uaod them he meant what he said, and said what he meant. His convictions were too deep to be trifled with, or concealed for the sake of a living. Hence he was downright in the extreme, and never erred upon the side of fliittery; it may be possible that he went too far in the direction of severity. 1 am very conscious that he would have chastened me pretty smartly as a “Chaffy Baptist,” and probably I might not feel eatisfied that I deserved all the bolts that he would be certain to launch at me, but what of that? Is it not better to be openly censured by an honest heart than to be in association with men whose approbation would be forfeited if you dared to be faithful to them? The separated walk of George Fox as a Christian, however accounted for, was fraught with blessing to this land.

Read his history through, and after being struck with his conversion, and wondering at the marvellous and gigantic strides with which he pursued the path of faith and conscience, you melt into sympathy with him when you consider his sufferings. There are some passages in his” Journal *’ which one ought not to read just before going to bed, because one would lie awake thinking of them, or else would dream about them* Readily may a tender mind wet the pillow with tears of grief, to think that man could so torture his fellow man under pretence of doing God service. He was frequently immured in dungeons where it would have been a detestable cruelty to have confined dogs. How many months he spent in prison we need not here tell; but you may count by years the period in which he was a prisoner of the Lord, and although, I doubt not, he found, as Rutherford did, that though man had put him in a prison, that prison became a palace to him, yet the dungeons were loathsome to an inconceivable degree. Sometimes he was compelled to remain upright both day and night, because it was impossible to lie down, the filth being over the tops of his shoes, with no possibility of clearing it out, filth of the most abominable kind, and too foul to mention, being poured upon him from above, and coming reeking into his nostrils from beneath. One can hardly tell what his sufferings must have been in the /orm of rheumatism and neuralgia. He was a life-long martyr. If any of us had to suffer for one week what he had to suffer for six months together bur bodily frames would bear most painful memorials of the strain. His pain of body must have been extreme; and yet with all that how little he says about it! As an eagle outsoars the clouds, so does he rise above the influence of his outward man. In his persecutions he stands before us as a true man, a complete man, one of the noblest types of manhood, a model of what gracious manhood may become. When falsely accused we find him declaring the gospel of Jesus Christ to his persecutors as boldly as though they were his friends. You cannot but love him. Even if he had preached false doctrine we must have sympathized with his sufferings, but teaching, as he did, some of the noblest of truths, what shall we say of him!

As for his labors, he shamea u.3 in the present day. The man was everywhere. He flew as swiftly as a aeraph in oheditnce to his Lord. He preached the gospel in almost every town and every village, from Falmouth up to Aberdeen, and then crossed the Atlantic to preach to the settlers and the Indians in the land of the setting sun. When did he rest? Filthy prisons could not have yielded him ease, and yet a sojourn in jail was the only rest he had. He was a man ail ablaze with the fire of zeal and the light of unselfishness. We all like a litde recreation now and then, and need it, but he had it not. Who ia there amongst us who has not had a fortnight, at least, -.it the sea-side this year, and felt we wanted it? But Fox had no fortnights, nor even minutes of rest. It was all work, work, work, from the day when he found himself saved till the day when he died in harness, and slept because his work was done, and his Master bad said to him, “Friend, come up higher.” Oh, that those who are engaged in the service of God would learn to emulate his industry! W’e frequently hear complaints about the hardness of the Christian service, but ought they ever to be raised? We get weary in preaching, perhaps, but if we preached oftener and more fervently we should not grow half so weary. I sometimes venture to tell those of my brethren who get exhausted by preaching twice a week that that is enough to kill anybody, but that preaching ten or twelve times a week might be easier work. If the blacksmith should take his huge hammer and make horse-shoes only once a week his arm would tire, and he would never be able to get through with his work; but when he iloes it every day in the week, he is even able to make music upon the anvil. So when a man works constantly for God, he will be able to work joyfully. We none of us know what we can do. The labor which appears hard to us to-day will be easy to-moprow if we attempt it; then let us go on to something more, and when, by God’s help, we have accomplished it, we will seek after something higher still, and never be satisfied until we have achieved all that holy love can produce from us. Loved as we have been by our Lord Jesus, and professing to be the po.ssessora of a spiritual and secret life of divine origin, let none of us be idle; nay, even if old age and infirmity have overtaken us, let the little strength we have be used for him who loved us and gave himself for us.

Nothing becomes George Fox more in bis whole character than his perfect self-possession. Sometimes it was outwardly winter with George Fox, and sometimes it was summer, hut it waa all the same to him inwardly. I oannot detect him unbelievingly depressed, I cannot find him unduly exalted. If he is bound in prison, he does not despise a poor girl who is there detained for execution, but draws up a petition on her behalf, that her life may be spared; and when he visits Oliver Cromwell — let me say a right royal man, a true king — he is not at all abashed before the Protector, but speaks to him just as plainly as he speaks to the poor girl in the jail at Derby; he does not forget the little, or fear the great. When he writes to friend Charles the Second — ho, by the bye, scarcely deserves so honorable a title — it is jusl in the self-same bold but courteous style. There is not a grain of the fear of man about him. He is humble before God, but there is no affectation of humility in the presence of kings or princes. He never held men’s persons in admiration because of advantage, but spoke to men as his fellow mortals, and as God’g servant he was bold to tell them the Lord’s mind concerning them.

The death of our friend was the noblest thing of all. Not far from this spot he finished his course. I have prayed many times — in fact it has grown to be almost a daily prayer with me — that I may be able to say when I finish my course what George Fox said, “I am clear, I am clear.” Oh! it will be a special mercy for you, my brethren in the eldership here, you who speak in God’s name, if you shall be found clear at the last. Consider what God’s truth is, and how we ought to handle it as God’s truth, not as a matter to be trifled with or to be spoken without prayerful earnestness; and consider by whose power we profess to speak, namely, by the power of the Spirit of God. Do we always speak by that- power? Are- we always conscious that we are true to the motions of the Spirit within, and that we deliver ourselves a dying men to dying men? Are we not occasionally silent when we ought to speak, or do we not speak when we ought to be silent? May not sins of commission and sins of omission both accuse us? Oh! if we can say that we are clear we are happy indeed! But what a word — clear, clear of our children, clear of our friends, clear of our neighbors! Oh! above all, if we can say we are clear of the blood of this great city, this wonderful mass of human beings, placed here by God’s providence close to our hand, with the very intention that we should do our best to win them from destruction. If, looking at London, we could say, “I am clear,” it would make us, throughout eternity, praise the grace of God which had enabled us lo be faithful. I do not think that George Fox spoke too strongly when he said, ‘’I am clear.” So far as he knew the truth, I cannot see that he could have given his testimony to it moro boldly, or more .distinctly. He adopted every mode which ingenuity could devise to arouse a slumbering nation, and better still, he also followed after the better wisdom which comes from

the Spirit of God. Aa far as he knew it I believe he delirered every jot of God’s counsel, and that in all refipecta he was faithful to his conscience, bo that he could say, knowing that God was hearing him, “I am clear.”

It would not be right, perhaps, to close this mere sketch of George Fox’s life without saying that I do not think that his career is at present understood by the outside world. Generally, when lectnring upon his life, I go into the details because they are not known by the outside world, and the man’s history is fjarbled. I would like to think every man honest, but I really cannot think that Macaulay was honest in what he wrote aa he did about George Fox. I fear that he slandered him. I am afraid he had a prejudice against Quakers in general, and against George Fox ii particular; like Sydney Smith, who wanted to roast jufit one Quiiker, only one, just for the satisfaction of the thing. The story which Macaulay tells of Fox giving as an authority for wearing his hat the fact that the three ooly children were cast into the furnace with their hata on, is not according to the fact of the case, but is a manifest perversion of the true atory in which Fox, instead of being ridiculous, might even claim to be eminently witty. The outside world supposes that George Fox was a wild, mad, scurrilous fello“w in a suit of leather, who went about making disturbances in churches and abusing ministers; and, to say the truth, the outside world cannot make ont how it is that you sober, quiet people could have sprung from him. They suppose that you are descended from him by a pedigree of contradiction. They cannot understand how he who “turned the world upside down” should have been the founder of such a serious, orderly, peaceful body of people as you are, so sober that there are none so sober on the face of the earth. But if they would really read the man’s life — jind you must make them do that, for it would do them good — I think they would say, “Well, though there are many eccentricities, yet this is the biography of a great man.”

Speaking of eccentricities, the worst of them arc easily understood when you know your man, and see the one idea which burned within him. Take for instance bis walking through Lichfield crying, “Woe to the bloody city of Lichfield!” Now supposing a man wants to produce a certain effect on a certain city, if he selecta the surest method of so doing, is he therefore unwise? It is quite certain that everybody at that time heard of what Fox had done, but if he had merely preached a sermon in Lichfield, the discourse might have gone down with the general current of his sermons, and we should have heard no more about it. His walking through the street was talked of everywhere, and if he wished it should be he certainly accompliBhed hat he desired. If ministers now-a-days used justifiable means of making men hear their testimony, they might certainly do worse. Propriety is sometimes to be disregarded when truth is to be manifested, and it is even better to break through rules of decorum than to leave men at ease in their sins. For my part, though I do not intend walking barefooted either through Lichfield or London, if I felt that good might be done thereby, or thought that the Lord bade me do it, I hope I should have grace to set out to-night upon the errand. Everybody would laugh, but what would it matter if conscience did but approve? Now Fox’s conscience did approve; need I say more? It was an age in which people were somewhat fanatical in religion. Fox was very much more sober than many of the religionists of the period, and he by no means endorsed all that was done even by his own professed followers. We dare not lay at the door of our Master, the Lord Jesus, all the things that his followers may happen to do, and we cannot, therefore, charge to George Fox all the eccentricities and the wildnesses which were to be seen in some of his immedinte followers. Though he was one of the best of men, he was but a man at the best. There must be some flaw somewhere in mortal characters, but Fox came very much nearer to perfection than the most of his critics; &nd it is safe to say that Fox knew better what he ought to do than we who live two hundred years after him.

I did not mean to have said so much upon this part of the Subject, but now I beg your attention while I speak upon some of the legacies which Fox left to succeeding ages. He did no le»lre so much in gold and silver ad I suppose most of my brethren around me are likely to leave to their descendants. I should suppose that his wealth in this world was exceedingly small. When John Wesley was asked how much plate he had; he answered that he had one silver spoon with him and one at Bristol, and that was all; and while there were so many poor peopple in the world he should n6t increase the stock. George Fox, I should think, did not even come up to that, but he bequeathed to us in his last will and testament more than as if he had given us the mines of Peru, for he has left to the Christian chutch in the clearest and most unmistakeable utterances a testimony for the apititudUiy of true religion. It is wonderful how full the testimony is. If you were to read through the lives of all the eminent saints, I believe you would com6 to the conclu-’ sion that of all others George F^x is the m<>st distinct upon th oike point, that God is a Spidt, and they tha worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth,’’ I delight W hear him talking

about the “steeple-houses.” Quite right, George Pox! That is what they are, and nothing better! “A church!” said he; “did -Christ shed his blood for the steeple -ho use, and purchase and sanetify the steeple-houae with his blood? And seeing the church ib Christ’s bride and wife, and that he ia the head of the church, dost thou think that the steeple- house is Christ’s bride, and that he is the head of that old house?” Some of our dissenting friends are coming to call their buildings for public worship “Churches,” because a church meets in them. Why do not they call them “Suns” or “Moons,” because the light shines in them? The title would be quite as appropriate. I fear that we shall go back to superstition by slow degrees through the mlause of terms; for though such misuse may appear to have bat little harm in it at the first, yet there very soon comes to be mischief in it, and therefore it is as wise as it is right to be cautious from the very first. Buildings used for ecclesiastical worship were merely buildings and nothing more to this great Elijiih. He often testified that the so-called churches were not one whit more consecrated than the moors and commons, and were more like Jeroboam’s calves’ houses than the true temples of God which are the bodies of bis own people. He believed in no consecration flowing from prelates’ hands. He had discovered long before the hymn was written, that

This a truth which the church needed to he taught then, and which the church needs to be taught still.

Fox had no sort of respect either for consecrated persons. Priests had no quarter at his hands. By a little imagination 1 think I hear George Fox addressing one of those “green and gilded “gentlemen of the Church of England who now-a-daya dress themselves up to such a splendor of absurdity. The highly-decorated creature would win small favor from the honest Friend; and if he proceeded to perform in his mass-house, George would be as plain with him as Elijah Tvith the priests of Baal, and mock him with as grim a scorn as did the prophet when he said, “Cry aloud, for he is a god!” It would be worth any price to hear George Fox pour contempt upon the rubbishing paraphernalia of the modern Popery which is spreading around us. He bad a very copious and forcible vocabulary when he came to talk of priests, and little cared he to what sect they belonged; if they set up for priests, he waa very much at home in pulling them down. Fox believed that any man who preached the truth in the power of the Holy Spirit was God’s minister, but he would not have it that a man was a minister merely because he was educated at Oxford or Cambridge, or any other University, and had obtained the family living, and had the hands of a bishop put upon his head. Although the ordained pretender may be recognized by the State, and give himself all the airs in the world, he is not God’s minister for all that. Fox believed that the poorest person whom God moved to speak was God’s voice to the people, but that the most learned and the best educated man who was a stranger to the new birth, and had never received the incorruptible seed which liveth and abideth for ever, was a mere imposter when he rose up to speak in the name of the Lord. Fox left us his testimony in this matter very clearly and unmistakably. Ifay, so valiant is his testimony for spiritual religion that he tramples the outward form under the feet of the inward life in matters where others have not been clear; I allude to the use of verbal utterances in worship. He sat still for two hours while the people were expecting to hear him preach, and he did not give them a word, because he would banish them from words, and teach them to worship God in the spirit. Is it not the fault of many of us who do try as much as possible to preserve and cultivate the simplicity of worship, that we are so everlastingly talking? I find it a very blessed thing at the Tabernacle to say,” Now let us sit still for a few minutes.** It is often the very best part of the meeting, when the soul can masticate and digest the truth; and if this were done oftener when we meet together for worship, if more frequently solemn silence were proclaimed, I believe the very best results would follow from it. It is as much formality for people to think that they cannot worship God without the voice of the preacher as it is for others to fancy that they cannot worship God without an altar and a priest. It is ceremonialism to imagine that we mttst sing, or pray or read in a certain order; or must sit still just so many minutes; how much better while all things are done decently and in order to conduct worship as the Divine Spirit may direct! The Spirit of God is free, and sometimes the best worship will be with words, but ac other times the best worship will be without words. Fox tells us this very unmistakably.

Would that the spirituality of worship were known throughout England! Would that it were recognized in every place of worship, that we must worship God who is a Spirit in spirit and in truth! Let it never be forgotten, my brethren, in your meetings, for it is to be feared that even your peaceful silence may be regarded as if it were necessarily worship, whereas the silence of your meetings, without the Spirit, is no better than silence in

Tortr beds, nay, it ia no better than talk and babble unless the Spirit of God hold high communion with your souls. We must keep this in mind constantly. Preachers cannot preach about it too often, for the rising race need to be told of it incessantly. You who become members of Society by birthright must tate especial care lest you imagine yourselves to be members of Christ’s church because you happen to be members of Society. Do not conclude that you are necessarily children of God because you wear the garb and use the peculiarities of the Society. Alas! we know that it ia one thing to talk about spiritual things, but quite another thing to feel them: one thing to make a profession of thom, and even to live in outward correspondence with that profession to a degree, but quite another thing to have the inward and spiritual grace. The world, of course, turns away with a sneer, and says, “What do we care for this spiritual fanaticism? and wo can reply to the world, “Thou knoweet nothing about it! How canst thou know it, for it is spiritually discerned.” But you and I must see to it that every act of worship which we perform is done in the Spirit. We must pray in the Spirit, sing in the Spirit, and preach in the Spirit. When I have sometimes heard the clerk say “Let us sing to the praise and glory of God,” I have wondered whether it was not far more to the praise and glory of the organ or of the singing-pew, and when this is the case what a mockery it is! Only that music is sweet in God’s ear which comes from the heart, and only that praise is accepted which is the work of his Spirit in the aoui. George Fox, dear friends, has bequeathed these principles to you. I pray you guard them with your lives, and hand them down with undiinmed lustre to your sons. Let nothing beguile you from your steadfastness in the spirituality of your worship, and press it upon others everywhere, wherever you have an opportunity, that the Father seeketh such to worship him as worship him in spirit and in truth.

Furthermore, Fox has left ua a very noble legacy in his teaching concerning the tin of intolerance. Intolerance was looked upon as a virtue in his day, and men persecuted each other for the glory of God. With a few noble exceptions, Fox alone, the sufferer, the patient one, who never had a hand to lift to strike his fellow man, but was always ready to pray for and to bless hie persecutors, Fox almost alone taught the sin of intolerance. I have a notion that all denominations of Christians have, in their time, persecuted, except the Society of Friends and the Baptists, and it has been shrewdly hinted that we Baptists have never done so because we have never had the chance; but this is scarcely correct, for Roger Williams certainly had an opportunity in Rhode Island, to have set up a Baptist state religion, but he spurned the thought. We have both of us a very clear history to look back upon with regard to that. Yet we may fall into intolerance insensibly, for the habit of only buying goods af those persons of our own faith (if such a habit still survives) is very like using the carnal arm. I do not know whether the cutting of a man’s acquaintance sometimes, because he thinks rather differently from ourselves, has not in it the spirit of intolerance; and, mark you, it is the spirit of sin which we have to guard against even more carefully than the outward* act of it, because when we countenance the spirit, the outward act is sure to follow. If there be a man who thinks wrongly, and is a heretic, and we cannot receive him into our families because of the mischief which might be wrought by his conversation, yet if it be in our power to do him good, we ought to do so none the less because we abhor the doctrines he preaches; we are to treat him all the more kindly because we abominate the things which he spreads abroad. We shall never win him by hard words. We shall never overcome him but by using spiritual weapons, and by these only shall we win the victory if the victory is to be won. I hope that throughout all England now we shall all desire to keep ourselves clear from persecuting our fellow Christians, and if there should remain some who would still seize foods for tithes and church rates, well, even so must they remain, suppose, incorrigible sinners; but let us hope that the light may even reach those dark ivy-mantled belfries yet, and scare the owls of bigotry and religious tyranny out of their roostingplaces. When will men understand that God loveth a cheerful giver, that he hates robbery for burnt- offering, and will never receive upon his ftltar that which has been rent by force of arms from those who conscientiously refuse to give it?

George Fox has left us a third great legacy, namely, his tesiimony against the abomination of war. When I first read George Fox’s Life, I could think of nothing but Christ’s Sermon on the Mount. It seemed to me that George Fox had been reading that so often that he himself was the incarnation of it, for his teaching is just a repetition of the Master’s teaching there, just an expansion and explanation of the primary principles of Christianity. I am always glad to hear of a soldier being a Christian; I am always sorry to hear of a Christian being a soldier. Whenever I hear of a man who is in the profession of arms being converted I rejoice; but whenever I hear of a converted man taking up the profession of arms I mourn. If there be anything clear in Scripture it does seem to me that it is for a Christian to have nothing to do with carnal weapons, and how it is thai the

great mass of Chriateodom do not see this I cannot understand; surely it muBt be through the blinding influences of the Bociety in which the Christian church is cast. But Fox’s singularly clear, mental vision could see that to buckle on the carnal sword was virtually to be disobedient to Christ, The Christian who enlists in the army of any earthly king forgets that they that take the a word shall perish with the a word, and that Jesus has said, “Resist not evil; but if any man smite thee on the one cheek, turn to him the other also.” “My kingdom is not of this world, else would my servants fight.” May the day come when war shall be regarded as the most atrocious of all crimes, and when for a Christian man, either directly or indirectly, to take part in it shall be considered as an abjuration of bis principles. The day may he far distant, but it shall come, when men .shall learn war no more; a right view of the true character of war may hasten that happy era.

Another of Fox’s great gifta to us was his testimony to the sinfulness of oaths. I think you, respected friend a, are bound to continue to enlighten the Christian public upon this point, though I do not say that I think the Christian public deserve enlightenment upon it; for the Scripture is very plain and unmistakeable. If the Lord Jesus intended to teach ua the sinfulness of oaths he could not have used stronger language than that which he has used, “I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven, for it is God’s throne, nor by the earth, for it is his footstool.” The connection shows that this cannot refer to false swearing, but that it must refer to the ordinary swearing of men in courts of law. The Christian is positively forbidden to do so, and he who thus takes an oath, to that extent, at least, forswears obedience to Christ”; he docs, in fact, say, “I prefer to do as the world bids me, rather than do as Christ bids me; because it happens to he an inconvenient thing for the world’s courts for mo to do as Christ would have me do, therefore will I let ray Lord and Saviour he forgotten, lest my case should suffer damage,”

You Friends have perfect liberty in this matter; and jonr fathers well earned it, for the persecution which this simple matter brought upon them was like the furnace heated seven times hotter. In the first days almost every Quaker had been in prison, and most frequently on this account. If somebody would put all my church members into prison I should he very sorry; hut I am sure the result to them would be a most blessed one, if they suffered for conscience sake; for nothing makes a man stronger than locking him up for a little while tor Christ. You have earned liberty in this matter of oaths, as I have said;

Trill you try to get it for us also? for there are some of us — and I hope there will be many more — who feel the same conscientious diflSculties which you feel about it, and who could not and would not swear. Why should we be put to inconvenience on this account? Fox, in this respect, simply told us what Christ had told us before. Let us try to remind our fellow Christians of this very important matter.

If I do not tire you, I desire to add a little upon Fox’s personal virtues, which God*s Spirit wrought in him, as being the great necessity of the present age. Such a man as George Fox now-a-days would be, in some respects, a singular phenomenon. Being dead, men honor him; if he were alive, it would be another matter. Keep a bear in a cage and people will go and look at him; but if the same bear were roaming down Gracechurch Street unmuzzled, I question whether we should all crowd upon the wood pavement to enjoy his company. So, George Fox in heaven is all very well; but if he were to descend — well, there are some who would wish him back again. Have you never heard that once upon a time that Golden Rule — “Do to others as ye would that others should do to you” — broke loose, and chanced to wander into the Exchange; whereupon there was a great clamor raised against the intruder, and many cried out, “Here, beadle, here is the Golden Rule got out of church! Take him away; he has no business here!” If George Fox were here now to act out his principles in his own style in business, his simple honest habits would be quite out of joint with the modes of modern finance.

First, he had learned the noble habit of very plain speaking. I do not suppose that many beyond your Society will acquire the habit of using the “thee*’ and “thou” in conversation, but that practice was a significant part of a very precious whole. It was a portion of a great moral principle, namely, the use of words in their proper signification, and not wresting them from thehr right etymological position. One admires that incident in Fox’s journal where one of his persecutors says to him, “Mr. Fox, your obedient servant.” “Beware of hypocrisy and of a rotten heart,” replies Fox: “when was I ever thy master? and when wast thou ever my servant? Do servants put their masters in prison?” What a blow for poor compliments! Possibly you never had a writ, or a notice in a county court action, addressed to you and signed “your obedient, humble servant,” but that is the style of things with the world. “Oh you know,” says somebody, “everybody knows what it means.” If a man writes a letter full of abuse, he begins, “My dear sir.” No matter how much animosity may be in a man’s heart, he will be sure to

address you as “my dear sir,” and nse the usual fjtlse compliments of the fashion. This might not be so bad, if it were not a part of the most terrible and crying mischief Yhich iw iipparent everywhere, of persons using words in a non-natural sense, or in a sense not generally allowed.

Many of the terms of busineBS are so corrupted from their meaning that they convey a false iden to the common observer, even in such plain matters as numbers and quality; but the reply is, “Well, everybody knows what it means; it is the custom you know, and therefore we may do it.” I ask why is it the custom to speak in words which are not true? Every religion is thus tainted now. I do not know whether you will approve of what I am about to say, but I cannot refuse to say it. I feel that when a clergyman takes a child in his hands, sprinkles it, thanks God that it is regenerate, and teaches that child afterwards to say, “In my baptism, wherein I was made a member of Christ, a child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven” — if that clergyman does not believe that such baptism made the child “a member of Christ, a child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven,” he is guilty of a dishonest utterance. It ia a hard thing to say, but I cannot help saying it; the words are very distinct and plain. If he really ia such a fool as to believe that those few drops of water have made the infant “a member of Christ, a child of God, and »n inheritor of the kingdom of heaven,” why then we cannot &nd fault with his so saying; but we must leave him there, and pray that he may be enlightened: but if, saying that, be really does not believe it, and in Iiis preaching tells his people that they must be born again in quite another way than in that of baptism, then, brethren, I cannot shy otherwise than that such a course of action isdishontst. “Eutnobody understands those words as thi’y stand,” sHys some one. This, however, is not true, for we find a numerous body who boldly advocate Baptismal Regeneration, and quote these words as the foundation of their faith. The highest Tractarianism defends itself by the plain and evident meaning of declarations which good evangelical Christian men have solemnly assente<i to. Now is this justifiable? Ought we not above all other things to be plain, simple and straight-forward in matters which concern the eternal interests of men’s souls? What wonder is it if tricks played with language by the professed ministers of Christ should lead on to trickery in the commercial world?

The practice of cooking accounts, issuing fictitious reports, and creating imaginary capital, is but another phase of shiftiness in the use of terms, and there are some found to defend it upon the principle that everybody knows it’s always done; and one is not to judge high financing by the same rule us small transactions.

I*

The commercial morality of this nation to a fearful extent is corrupted. If I make any allusion to this melancholy fact, people say, ‘* Ah! you do not understand business,** Now, if business were a correct thing I think I could understand it, if it were conducted upon perfectly honest and straight-forward principles. I am not such a simpleton as not to be able to see when a thing is honest or dishonest; and if there be a mode of conducting business which is so intricate, shuffling, and complex that I cannot understand it, and that no other minister can understand whether it is honest or not, then I say it is something which needs looking into, and requires alteration. When a common-sense Christian man cannot understand business, it is time that business ohould know that it has no business to be such business as it is. Should not a Christian man — I am sure the disciples of George Fox should — be transparent in his business transactions? He should be such a man that if any one should pop in and look at his accounts, he should have no need to lock up his books because of improper entries. He ought never to manipulate accounts so as to confess, “Well, that is a very awkward piece of business; but if so and so turns up it will never be heard of, and we shall net a handsome sum, although, if another event occurs*, we shall be shown up, and most men will call it a piece of roguery.** Is it so, after all, that success makes a doubtful transaction right, and that failure makes it wrong? Really, friends, this will not do. This common fabrication of wealth out of mere paper, the making of affairs to appear as they are not, thi conjuring and legerdemain by which capital is created, and shares thrust upon the public; this lying and stealing on a large scale — for that is the English of it — will undermine the position of England amongst the nations, unless something be done to stay it. We had better go back to “thee** and “thou** with George Fox, and tell men that they are hypocrites and have rotten hearts, if we believe they have, rather than keep on complimenting each other, and uniting to maintain a fictitious state of society. The old Scotch proverb is, “Ca me and I’ll ca thee.**” Thou treat me a man of wealth, and I will treat thee the same; and as we both are men of straw, we shall keep each other up.*’ Thus holding hands together in a confederacy of untruthfulness they hope to be believed, and come to believe in themselves; but when the great Heart-searcher comes to deal with us, he will do so upon very plain and simple moral principles, and not at all in the fashion in which some men have dealt with their fellows. I thought it necessary to say this, and if it should be a cap to fit the head of anybody here, I hope he will wear it.

There is another respect in which we greatly need to return

to the example of George Fox, to whom, with all due deference to your manners and customa, I would most surely take off my hat if I met him, and cxcusb myself by declaring, “George Fox, I must and will pay you more respect than I do moat men, and I will for once even venture on a compliment that is distasteful to you, for I so honor your character.” George Fox is to he admired for the sway which conscience had over him in little things. Take that hat matter as an instance. It is not a matter of wonderful consequence after all whether a man takes his hat off or keeps it on, excepting as it may be with him, as it was with Fox, a matter of conscience. If I believe it to he a matter of conscience and principle with me, I am not to ask questions as to how far I shall be obedient to the inward monitor, but must follow it at once in the smallest things, for if I get in the ha’bit of violating conscience in small things I shall go on to something greater, and so on again till I have no conscience left, or only a conscience that ia seared. A child may have an unfortunate propensity to steal some little thing, it maybe only an apple; but still, if the parent shall wink at that fa ult, the child will grow up to be a thief. Your child may tell a story a little differently from the way in which it occurred, and if you do not correct it at once he may turn aside from the truth, till the habit of truthrs peaking may he lost. So then, it ia not the wearing of the hat or the cutting of the coat in itself that matters; it is not the importance of the thing itself intrinsically; but it involves the Whole of obedience to the higher law, or willful rebellion. If an action is right let it be done; if it be not right let it be avoided, however little and contemptible others may think the case to be. The sway of Fox’s conscience ia to be seen in the fact of hia never inquiring what other people would think of him, but resting in the liberty of the divine presence. Many of us are always enquiring, “What will Mrs. Grundy say?” “What will the world think?” Hundreds of persons are more influenced by what others do than by any consideration of principle. The tyranny of so-called respectability is terrible. “You know we must keep up an appearance, we must ha respectable; where are you if you get out of society?” Did it never strike such people that some of the most respectable people are not respected, and that many of those who are most truly respected neverwere what society calls respectable. Better fur to be worthy of respect than to be respectable. Thousands of fine ladies and gentlemen are respectable upon somebody else’s money. We are told occasionally by poor people as a reason why they are not at our meetings, “Sir, I had not clothes that were fit to come in,” and I frequently reply,” If your clothes »re paid for the; are fit to come

in. Never be afraid of coming to worship with God’s people, whatever your dress may be.” The popular fashion of keeping up one’s respectability is doing great mischief in this age. It makes people spend more than they ought, and go to a great extent of extravagance when they might be quite as happy and far more useful with a far less expenditure. In fact, we are all spending at a great rate now-a-days compared with the ways of our fathers, and though you, respected friends, do not exceed, and I trust never will, in the fashionableness of your dress, yet you may be too lavish in your houses, and bven the dress may cost as much, I suppose, in one color as in another, and what is

fiven up in color may be taken back in richness of material. Iven you may forget the simplicity which cares only for the approbation of God and courts no smile from man! “What will the world say f Now, it is my firm belief that the question never once entered George Fox’s mind, as to what anybody would say about him. “What does God think of me? “was his ruling thought. Am I acting according to the voice of God within my heart? If I am, the unclean may hiss at me, or thrust me into prison, or call me what they will, but it matters not, I shall rest in peace, because my conscience is void of offence; but if all men speak well of me, then shall it be woe unto me if the still small voice within shall tell me that I have not acted rightly in the sight of God. This sway of conscience will enable a man to be singular, when to be singular is to be right. It will give him the noble egotism of Athanasius when he said, “I, Athanasius, against the world.” It will make him feel, “If the skies must be upheld by my doing wrong, let them fall; for even to avert the universal wreck I would not degrade my spirit to unhallowed acts of which my Lord and Master would disapprove.” Worthy Fox, thou wast as a brazen pillar, and an iron wall when conscience was concerned.

One of the grandest points in Fox is his constant recognition of the existence, operation and indwelling of God. Are we professing Christians sure that we are not infidels: are we certain about it? I am not so sure about many professors. What is God to most men but an abstraction? He is in heaven, and they look up after him, as though he were not here, as though he were not as much down as up. They speak of him as though he filled the heavens and were yonder, and then act as if there were a thick cloud between themselves and him. If there were no God they would not change their lives; they would live as they now do, actuated by the same motives and appetites. But to George Fox, “Our Father who is in heaven” was one near at hand, and the Holy Spirit was one who dwelt in him, and

remained with him for ever. He did not imagine that God was oblivious of his servsintB, but he expected that God would speak to him, commune with him, cheer liitn, guide him, comfort him, chide him, uphold him. He had inwurd commuaications from God, in the strength of which he went his way to suffer and to serve with all his heart, and soul, and strength. Do we live precisely in this way? Ton, venerable friends, who have for years lived in the light of God’s countenance, have not even you sometimes to mourn that you do not always feel the presence of the Master, nor walk by the rule of his Spirit within you? Shillitoe speaks of being like a cork upon the water, moved by the faintest motion of the Spirit; we are not always just ao sensitive, I fear. We grow so great that we are rather like the Great Eastem, and need a huge wave of grace to move us, or otherwise we are insensible of the influence. We do not recognize the present power of God, but Fox did, and his heart was like the leaf of a sensitive plant, conscious of every heavenly touch. Fearless of man, he yet quaked and trembled before the God of Israel, It would set all right in England if, through divino grace, “Thou, God, seest me” were constantly before the eye of every man’s mind.

Furthermore, and very briefly, wo want in England just now much of Fox’s holy zeal against idolatry and formalism. There ifl far more idolatry in England than we dream of. People speak very respectfully about superstitious objects. We have holy buildings, and therefore, I suppose, holy mortar, holy stones, holy slates and panes of glass, then there are holy fonts, holy altars, and holy vestments, and all sorts of holy rubbish. Much horror is expressed if you say a word that is not deferential to these objects of superstition. Vou might almost as soon be excused for thieving as for speaking jocosely of a christening font. When a very sensible gentleman the other day said that when wine was mixed with water it was no longer wine, but negua, he stated a simple matter of well known fact; but now he appears to be as frightened as though he had set the Thames on fire. He might have said it over and over again and have felt no fear, for it is the truth; wioe and water is negus, everybody knows that, and it is as much negus when the priest holds it up in the chalice as it would be should you drink it out of a tumbler. Wine is wine in one place aa much aa in another, and negus is negus in each case. If my friend takes that wine and uses it as a. token to help him to remember the blood of the Lord Jesus, 1 am happy that he should derive any good from the symbol; but if he thinks that the wine itself can become the blood of the Lord Jeaua, or that it conveys grace to him, then I will sorrowfully use any term of contempt which I can think of to express my horror of his idolatry. We are getting very tender of people’s sensibilities now-a-days, so tender, that we let them live in sin and even go to hell without a warning; we are getting so wondrously mild and quiet that one would fancy that truth gave us no pleasure, and error caused us no pain. George Fox was weakened by no such wicked squeamishness. To him a steeple-house was a steeple-house, and nothing more. We must take care that we do not, by our amiable silence, countenance men in their superstitions. We must let them see that we worship Grod only, and that we have no reverence for their priests and their idols. Of course, if a man chooses to worship Mumbo Jumbo he has a perfect right to do so as far as religious liberty is concerned; but if we should speak deferentially of his idol, and show reverence to his observances, we shall be partakers in his sin, and have fellowship with his idolatry. The same is true of the performances of Popery and Puseyism; they are to excite in us holy zeal and indignation.

One thing more which one admires in this great man’s character is Mb fearUsB reliance upon the force of truth. He states a truth boldly, and does not bolster it up with human authorities, as though he felt it to be too weak to stand alone. He knew that truth springs fully armed from the mind of God, and is able to fight its own battles. He declared the truth, not in gaudy periods draped with rhetorical embellishments, but he let it fall upon the conscience in its simplicity, believing that it would wake an echo there which if it did not bring the man to salvation, would at any rate leave him without excuse. When he had truth committed to his trust he did not cry, “I wish that this little stranger had been left a.t somebody else’s door, I hardly know how I shall bring it up, it is such a poor weak little thing.” He did not hide it for three months as the Hebrew mother did with her goodly child, or make for it a little anonymous pamphlet like an ark of bulrushes, into which to put it and leave it to crocodiles or reviewers, but he owned the truth, and was not ashamed to defend its cause. Truth was to him a fire-brand, which he hurled upon the standing corn of the Philistines. He knew that what God gave him to proclaim would win its own way. Certain ministers have got into the habit of always apologizing when they are about to speak. Should God’s servants do this? When the ambassadors of the Western powers first resorted to the Court of his Celestial Majesty, the brother of the Sun and the cousin of the Moon, the Emperor of China, they were compelled to go down on their hands and knees before his Celestial Splendor, till, as the story goes, a

bluff English sailor refused the indignity in terms not at all fit for the present company, but quite sufficiently Strong at any rate. He would not stoop, not he. The imperial brother of the Sun and cousin of the Moon might dispense Tiith the ambassador’s presence if ho liked, but he would never go down on his hands and knees to him, and the Chinamen began to think that the English people must be a superior order of barbarians. When a Christian minister, feeling he has something to say, says it, and says it fearlessly, men begin to think there is something in it; but if he commences with apologies, as though he excused himself for uttering his message, his hearers say, “Well, the man has evidently something to say that he is ashamel of; and as he ought to know better than we do, we have no doubt it is a worthless message, and we will give no attention to it.” It was never so with Fox. His cry is like that of Peter and John, “Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have give I thee: in the name of Jesus of Nazareth I speak.” He had something better than gold and silver to give; he had the truth of a spiritual religion to declare, and he tells them that it is at their peril that they reject it, and with tearful anxiety he beseeches them to lay hold upon it.

I am going to conclude, but I desired to say to the Friends assembled here, and to all Friends in this kingdom, Beloved brethren and sisters in Christ Jesus — for that I trust we are — does not the present age greatly require i/ou .^ It wants all Christians, but does it not specially need om .^ If you are or wish to be at all like George Fox, was there ever a period since his day in which the existence of the Quakers was more necessary than now? I think not; and this was why I wanted to have told you some time ago that I thought you stood upon a special vantage-ground in the fight with Ritualism — this covert Popery which is coming back amongst us. When on opponent can say to you, “Physician, heal thyself,”it weakens your position. Eut in the matter of Ritualism an opponent cannot say this to you, unless, indeed, as I have heard some wicked people say, you may become as ritualistic in the utter ab.sence of form as others do with the excess of form. I do not know whether that is true or not, but if so, do not let it be the case any longer. As far as X can judge, however, I believe you to be clear of this sin. Well, jhen, are you not the very persons constantly and vehemently to speak against it? Is there not need that you should speak against it? What greater evil can there be than for the powers of darkness to bring back again the idolatries of Rome’/ la it not a most terrible sign of the times that the public taste is evidently running that way? The taste in dress is florid, the taste in decoration is* florid too; and this, perhaps, to some extent, accounts for the craving for a florid religion. But, over and above this, there are the principles of priestcraft which are being intruded upon us. It is not so much the gaudy dresses, the crucifixes, the incense, that we have to complain of, as it is the doctrine that we are to confess our sins to man, and that this man has received by some mystic operation through a long succession of priests, power from God to forgive his fellow creatures* sins. Is it not shocking that men should be found in what we call “this enlightened nineteenth century ‘’ who really believe in priestly absolution, and that this belief is spreading, — spreading so fast that whereas if ten years ago one had said that the High Church party would be the most vigorous portion of the Church of England, people would have said, ‘’ It is false, it cannot be, you area prophetic impostor, you know nothing about it;’* yet it has really come to be so. If you read their weekly newspapers, and that which comes streaming from their press in such abundance, you will see that they really have great power, that they are men of energy, force, and skill. Somehow or other Satan does generally get good servants, and God*s servants are but sorry ones. Satan’s servants serve him well, but the servants of Christ are often half-hearted. These men are zealous in their superstition, and are pushing it right and left and carrying it to extremes. You have it within a door or two of this meeting-house, and you can see it for yourselves, in all its glory and in all its abomination, if you wish. Now, dear friends, should not all Christians bear their testimony against this?” Yes,” you will say, ‘’and we do so quietly in our meetings.” Just so, dear friends, and may God help you still to bear it in that quiet manner, and to give effect to it by your lives. But is not something more wanted than this quiet mode of protest? Have you no responsibilities as a community? I know you will excuse my speaking so very personally to you. Have you not as a community, though small in numbers, unusual influence? This influence is felt in many ways. Who can deny that upon the political history of our country, Friends have stamped, are stamping their

names indelibly? There aire names among Friends which we shall always honor, and which are foremost in the page of history, both in rektion to p plitical matters and to matters of social and political economy. Some of you are getting famous in antiquarianism, and all sorts of literary fame are open to you. I hope, however, that this will never be your chief glory. I hope it will never be the chief ambition of this Society to be chief and foremost in politics and literature. I hope you will never driVel into mere politicians, for it is drivelling* if ,jrou cease to make

*. *

religion your main business; and I equally hope that you will not drivel into mere echolara, or mere antiquarians «r meteorologists, for it ia a fearful coming down to come to be any of these rather than to be first and foremost a servant of Grod. I know my friend in the chair* will say “Amen” to this, fyid that he feels that to serve God is the first and chief thing, and is the highest position of manhood. In addition to all this undoubted influence you have considerable wealth; you have a large amount of plant in the form of chapels — I beg pardon; I should have said “meeting-houaes” — (that word “chapel” is a bad word; I wish we could get rid of it!) — you have a large body of highly disciplined Christian men; your young men, I should think, are, on the whole, better educated than the young men of any other class — and now, I ask you, is all this power, and wealth, and position, and influence to be unused? It is used, I know, in a thousand excellent ways. Are you not foremost as philanthropists? Will not the negro always remember your names, and the freedman always recollect you in his prayers? But I claim for Christ, I claim for truth, I claim for the Spirit of God, this power which he has given you. Dear friends, you have among you honored men who preach the gospel of Christ, and testify to the truth which they have received, but should not more of you speak for Jesus? Will there not be more publishers of the gospel if the Spirit of God shall visit you with a reviv;il, and come upon you as he did upon those of whom Joel prophesied, “And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreama, your young men shall see visions?” Ought we not hopefully to desire this? I came here to ask you to help those of us who are trying to fight against Ritualiiim and idolatry with your prayers and your sympathies. I do not ask you to agree with us in a. great many things which we as conscientiously believe lo be right as you do conscientiously believe them to be wrong. But do recollect us in your prayers, for wo are fighting a common battle for spiritual religion. If there be young men here with talents which should be consecrated to God; if there should be Christian brethren here who have been getting money and using it -well, but who have not wholly and thoroughly devoted it to the bearing of a testimony for Christ, — I do -pray you in the name of Him who, died upon the cross, by whose blessed Spirit we have been brought to trust in Him, to consecrate yourselves to His service wholly and unreservedly. If this Society coald be fully awakened to a consciousness of the position which it occupies, and of the danger of

.,i.-i,;i. *€. Gilpio, Esq., M. P. the present times, its smallness would, perhaps, prove to be its excellence, for sometitDes a multitude God will not use, but fiaith, “The people be too many for me.” If you be as Gideon’s men that lapped you may be the means of defeating Midian’s host. And what if this should lead to a discussion of doctrines which I hold dear but which you reject? Why in this I should rejoice without fear. If my views or any man’s views cannot bear the criticism of honest men, and comparison with God’s Word, let them go to the winds. It is not, however, controversy that I desire, but spiritual revival. I only want to see you true to vital points. I do not want to see you in a state of slumber, for, though that may be very pleasant, it is not the position in which you ought to be as followers of George Fox. If Pox were hete to-night he might not endorse all I have said; he might not go my lengths on some points, and he would go much further on others; but 1 am persuaded he would say to you, “Friends, now if ever testify for the Spirit’s work! Testify for the spirituality of godliness! Bear witness against idolatry! Cry aloud and spare not! Lift up the standard against the foe whose incoming is like a flood!” If Popery comes back, will you bear the blame of it? But you must, my friends, you must bear a large share of it if you do not now testify openly and loudly. If you do not help those who love spiritual religion you will be highly culpable. There are some of our Christian friends who practise unscriptural ceremonies, and therefore cannot speak out, for the reply would be, “you are yourselves in the mire;” but we who have repudiated the least idea of sacramental eflScacy can speak and must. We must “Awake, arise, or be forever fallen.” It would be a great calamity for your Society to cease to be until its great fundamental principle is accepted by the whole church. There are some of your principles to which you need not testify just now, because they are generally received, and your testimony is acknowledged; but this principle of spirituality of worship needs to be testified by us over and over and over again. Luther said that when he preached the doctrine of justification by faith he felt as though he could take the book and knock it against the people’s heads to make them see it. It were vain to do that, but this doctrine of the spirituality of worship needs to be iterated and reiterated, — to be dinned into people’s ears continually; and then unless the Holy Ghost puts it into their hearts they will only hear it with their ears, but not receive it in their souls. Friends, I pray you bear this testimony! I do not know in what way you can do it. It is not for me to prescribe to you, but I did feel it in my heart to say as much to you as I have said. In proclaiming the truth of a spiritual religion

may God bless you and multiply you, and make you great upon the face of the earth. We will sympathize with you. Wherein we think you err we will sorrow; wherein we think you right we will rejoice. I beard a remark the other day made bya brother of the Wesleyan denomination, a most eminent minister, which Ib worthy to be written in letters of gold because of its spirit of love. When speaking of the very slight increase of hia denomination, be said; “I have prayed to God often that if He would not be pleased to increase our Society because of our sins, or for any other cause, he would not suffer the whole Christian church to lose by it, but would be pleased to bless you Baptists instead; for so long as souls are saved my heart is glad.” I said to him, “My dear brother, that is a truly Christian prayer,” “Yes,” said he, “but we must not be surprised at it; it is what every Christian ought to he prepared to join in.” If our own denomination does not increise, let us pray that other denominations may prosper the more abundantly so far as they hold the truth. I am sure, friends, that if God shall multiply you greatly with truly godly converts, there are thousands of the Lord’s people who will be thankful for it, and will only feel that such an increase to your numbers will he an indication of the advance throughout England of true spiritual religion.

1 thank you, brethren and siaters, for your kind attention. God bless you, according to His mercy in Christ Jesus.

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XXXVI. — Ti»’ Sure Funndwlioti. Dy ff. 0. WWllaW. Prwe,

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