Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

loving to thy neighbours, courteous to thy friends, and charitable to the poor. Riches shall not make thee proud, nor prosperity puff thee up; but thou wilt consider whose steward thou art, and to whom thou must give an account. Be much in spiritual solitude and retirement; and choose for thy companions those that are most inward with God, and heavenly-minded. Be sober and grave in thy dress, and apparel, and let not thy table become a snare to thee. Pity the fantastic and extravagant, and let thy example be both reproof and instruction to them. O that thou mayst shine as a light in this generation, and be as a mother in Israel! which is the hearty desire of

66

Thy truly tender and affectionate Friend,
"RICHARD CLARIDGE."

In the beginning of the year, 1706, he removed from Barking to Edmonton in Middlesex, and soon after published his "Melius Inquirendum," or, An Answer to a Book of Edward Cockson, M. A. and Rector, as he styles himself, of Westcot-barton in the county of Oxon, misentitled, "Rigid Quakers, Cruel Persecutors," in which answer, the Quakers are cleared of the charge of persecution for religion.

On the 17th of the Twelfth Month, John Cook of Abingdon in Berkshire, who married Richard Claridge's wife's half-sister, came with a Friend of Southwark, named Richard Crafton, to visit him at Edmonton. This John Cook had formerly walked with, and preached sometimes among the Baptists; but being then lately convinced of the truth, as professed by the people called Quakers, had left the society of the Baptists, and joined with them. He brought with him a letter from an ancient Friend, named Oliver Sansom, to whom R. C. wrote the following answer.

"To Oliver Sansom of Abingdon."

"Dear Friend,

"On the 17th instant, brother John Cook, with a friend out of Southwark, came hither with thy letter. I had heard of him before, that he had left the Baptists, and went to Friends' meetings; and I was glad to see him, and to sit with him, that I might have a sense of his present state and condition. For, it is not every one that comes amongst us, and professes to own the truth with us in words, and some outward conformities, that is a convert; but he that owns the truth from an inward sense, and real experience of the work of truth upon his soul, as when a man can tell what truth has done for him. For conversion stands not only in the change of one opinion, or profession, or people for another; but in the change of heart, mind, will, affections, life, and conversation, and turning from sin and error, unto God and his truth. As when a man comes to have his blind eyes opened, his hard heart softened, his self-will denied, his filthy lusts, and vile affections crucified and slain; the old man put off, and the new man put on; to be poor in spirit, to become a fool for Christ's sake, to be stript and emptied of his own self-righteousness, self-wisdom, self-pride, self-conceitedness, self-notions, and speculations; that he may be made partaker of the righteousness, wisdom, humility, meekness, and selfdenial which is of God by Jesus Christ. When a man comes thus by the powerful work of truth, to the public profession of it, then he comes right, being first made a witness of it in himself, and then a professor of it to others: such a man can say, "I know in whom I have believed, for I can tell what the Lord hath done for my soul. I was blind, but the Lord hath opened mine eyes. I was dead, but he hath quickened me; I went astray, but he hath gathered me; I was an enemy, but he hath reconciled me. I had an heart of stone, but he hath taken that away, and given me an heart of flesh, a broken and a contrite spirit, that fears and dreads before him, and trembles at his word.'

"Such an one as this, knows the entrance in at the door, through the strait gate, into the narrow way, that leadeth unto life; knows Christ to be his foundation, elect and precious; his rock against which the gates of hell shall never prevail.

"I hope there is something of this work measurably begun

in my brother, but it is as yet a day of small things; he sees men as trees, and is under fears, tossings, and questionings, and seems to be exercised about speculative opinions and doctrines of men. That which I like in him, is, his professed plainness and sincerity, and the care and concern that is upon his spirit, that he may not relinquish one error for another, but may be led and guided into all truth. I answered several of his questions, as about the blood of Christ, his outward appearance, the way to come to true peace, and to distinguish between a false and a true motion, and found it with me to advise him to be still, and low in his mind, and to wait upon the Lord in his inward spiritual appearance, and to be content with his measure, and not to go before his guide; not to run before he is sent, not to offer false fire, but to wait for the Lord to prepare himself a sacrifice; and not to open his mouth in meetings, (for I have a fear of some forwardness that way,) until it shall please the Lord to open it; till he find his word to be as a fire in his bosom. And when he asked me, How he should do to know this from a delusion? I told him, If it were a right opening, a motion from the Lord, he would feel it come without his own study or meditation, and free of all self-mixture. I further told him, It would be safest for every one to forbear, while they are in doubt, and to be still, until the cloud be removed off the tabernacle.

"My love is towards him, and my cry is for him, to the God of my life, that he would be pleased to support him, under his exercises and temptations; and to carry him through them, and give him victory over them: and that he may wait the time of the present dispensation with patience, till the Lord is pleased to bring him out of the furnace, as gold refined, and prepared as a vessel, fit for his Master's use.

66 Thy invitation into the country, I tenderly acknowledge, as a token of thy love; but my duty is to wait till the Lord be pleased to send me forth; for I do not find as yet that my service lies that way.

"The censures of some Baptists, about my leaving them, and their ascribing it to some personal offence, that caused me to desert their communion, I regard not, having a witness in myself, that their charge is false. The Lord knows my sincerity in my leaving them; for if I could have found peace and satisfaction to my soul, in their doctrines and practices, I should not

have withdrawn from them. But the Lord by his light and Spirit of truth, in my waiting upon him, in the silence of fleshly reasonings, opened the Holy Scriptures, and made it manifest to me, that their churches were not rightly gathered, their ministers not sent of God, their doctrines many of them erroneous, their ordinances of elementary water and outward bread and wine, human institutions; and that their rest was polluted. That I was to come out from amongst them, and relinquish their erroneous doctrines, their man-made-worship, begun, continued and ended in their own will and time, and their dark and shadowy observations, and to turn my mind to the light and substance, to Christ in his inward spiritual appearance, to the truth itself; that thereby I might be taught, led, and enabled to worship God, who is a Spirit, in spirit and in truth, and so come to know the true rest of the people of God, and witness that peace to my soul, which passes not only the natural man's understanding, but also the understanding of the greatest formalists, under those outward and humanly invented modes and administrations; which peace, through the tender mercy of our God, blessed for ever be his name, I do in my measure enjoy, in humble and faithful waiting upon him: to whom be glory and honour, and majesty and dominion, ascribed for ever and ever!

66

My heart is full of tenderness and compassion towards those censurers, my brethren after the flesh, who had a love for me whilst I was in their state; but though theirs is turned into hatred against me, yet mine remains towards them, and I am contented to bear their reproaches, and do pray for them, that God would send out his light and his truth, that it may lead them to his holy hill, and to his heavenly tabernacle, where they may find rest unto their souls.

"My dear friend and brother, having found great freedom upon my spirit, in writing this epistle, I have been somewhat long, but thou wilt have a sense of it, and therefore needest no apology. I dearly salute thee, and all faithful Friends at Abingdon, in the love of God, and remain,

"Thy loving friend and brother,

"Edmonton,

"the Twelfth Month, 1706."

"RICHARD CLARIDGE."

CHAPTER VIII.

AFTER about a year's continuance at Edmonton, Richard Claridge removed to Tottenham, in the beginning of the year 1707, where he soon had a considerable school; the number of his boarders increasing, and divers of the town's people also sending their children.

He had not dwelt there long, before he was informed by some of his honest neighbours, that the Lord Colerane and Hugh Smithson, Esq. were offended, that a Quaker should keep a school in that parish, alleging the dangerous consequences that might attend it, as the instilling of erroneous principles (as they pretended) into the minds of the children, whose parents were not Quakers, and thereby to bring them into a dislike of the church service and ceremonies, and to proselyte them to Quakerism.

This, as he was informed, was the pretext of their displeasure, being excited thereto by the persuasions and importunities of the vicar of the parish, and his lecturer, and the master of the free-school there; the two former fearing the growth of heresy, as they insinuated, and the latter, the injury it might do to his school.

Accordingly, some of their party came to his house, and in a show of friendliness, told him, that the Lord Colerane and Justice Smithson would not have him teach any children of Tottenham and the neighbourhood, that were not of his own persuasion; for there was a free-school in the town; adding a menace, that if he did, the said lord and justice would give him trouble.

« VorigeDoorgaan »