George Fox: An Autobiography

Josiah Coale."

This letter was written in 1660, twelve years before this American visit. About the same time William Penn's thoughts were turning in the same direction. Writing about Pennsylvania in 1681, he says: "This I can say, that I had an opening of joy as to these parts in the year 1661, at Oxford twenty years since." By a purchase made through John Fenwick and Edward Byllynge, Friends obtained possession of a great section of New Jersey in 1674, the year after George Fox arrived in England. There can be no doubt that his thoughts were on future settlements here as he travelled through what is now Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

217

The "desperate river" was probably the Brandywine, and the Christiana "River" is Christiana Creek, formed from a junction of Red Clay and White Clay Creeks. It finds the Delaware about two miles below Wilmington. The Bohemia and Sassafras Rivers are two of the many arms of Chesapeake Bay. The "Kentish Shore" is the shore of Kent County, Maryland. Tredhaven (or Thirdhaven) is farther down the Bay, where the boats were so thick it seemed like the Thames! A meeting was established here which remains until the present time.

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In Delaware.

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Now St. Michael's.

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What is now called Baltimore Yearly Meeting was established in 1672.

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Now Somerton.

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Now Chowan.

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Now Roanoke.

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The letter began as follows:

"Dear heart,

"This day we came into Bristol, near night, from the sea; glory to the Lord God over all for ever, who was our convoy, and steered our course! who is the God of the whole earth, of the seas and winds, and made the clouds His chariots, beyond all words, blessed be His name for ever! He is over all in His great power and wisdom. Amen."

225

When George Fox married Margaret Fell she had one son, George, and seven daughters, as follows: Margaret, who married John Rous; Bridget, who married John Draper; Isabel, twice married, first to William Yeomans, and then to Abraham Morrice; Sarah, who married William Mead (Penn's companion in the famous trial), Mary, who married Thomas Lower; Susanna, who married William Ingram, and Rachel, who married Daniel Abraham.

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This is the beginning of a serious opposition to Fox's system of government, which finally grew to an open schism. It was headed by John Wilkinson and John Story. It was one of the most trying struggles of Fox's life.

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That is, in reclaiming those who have gone astray.

228

Margaret Fox and her daughter were sent on under the escort of a Friend, a merchant from Bristol, who, Fox says, "seemed to have met us providentially to assist my wife and her daughter in their journey homewards, when by our imprisonment they were deprived of our company and help." Fox had just received a message that his mother was in her last illness, and it had been his intention to part from his wife in Warwickshire and have a last visit with his aged mother. This privilege never came, for Mary Fox, of Fenny Drayton, died while her son was in Worcester prison.

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This is Chief Justice Sir Matthew Hale.

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It will be noticed that Fox is set at liberty on the errors in his indictment, and not on a judicial decision that it is illegal to imprison on a præmunire.

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George Fox was now only fifty-one years old, but he was prematurely broken by the sufferings and exposures which only such an iron constitution as he possessed could have endured for thirty years. He still had fourteen years to live, but from now on a decided change appears. There is no cessation of activity, but it is activity of a quieter sort. Only one important mission journey falls in these years – the visit to Holyland and Germany. Henceforth he makes his pen speak for him. Epistles and books are the main results of these fourteen years. The Journal grows dry and devoid of dramatic interest, and our gleanings from it will be few. He is much at Swarthmore or at Kingston, near London, where Margaret Rous, a daughter of his wife, lived.

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1677.

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Worminghurst.

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Fox did not see Roger Williams in Providence, though the latter had a personal tilt with John Burnyeat at Newport in 1671. After George Fox had left Providence and had gone back down the Bay with his companion, Nicholas Easton, governor of Rhode Island, Roger Williams rowed to Newport with a challenge to a debate. Fox, however, had already left the island, and was well on his way toward Long Island. Williams then wrote, what Fox elsewhere calls "Roger Williams's 'Book of Lyes,'" a book bearing the grimly humorous title, "George Fox digged out of his Burrows," Boston, 1676. (See Publications of the Narragansett Club, Vol. V., pp. xx. – xlv., Providence, 1872.) Fox and Burnyeat reply to this "slanderous book" in a sixty-five-page pamphlet entitled, "A New England Fire Brand Quenched." Fox seemed not to know just where the famous "apostle of soul liberty" lived, as he says, "a priest of New England (or some colony thereabouts!)"

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Whither they had gone for some religious service.

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This Galenus Abrahams was a Mennonite and a man of considerable note. Sewell, the Quaker historian, who had himself been a disciple of Abrahams, tells us that in this discussion, which lasted five hours, the latter maintained the position that "nobody nowadays could be accepted as a messenger of God unless he confirmed the same by miracle." (See Sewell's "History of Friends," Vol. II., page 368, edition of 1823. See, also, Barclay's "Religious Societies of the Commonwealth," pages 174, 251.) During his second visit to Holland, Fox had another interview with the famous Mennonite which gives an interesting side light on the penetrating power of Fox's eyes, already noticed. "Before I left I went to visit one Galenus Abrahams, a teacher of chief note among the Mennonites, or Baptists. I had been with him when I was in Holland about seven years before and William Penn and George Keith had disputes with him. He was then very high and shy, so that he would not let me touch him, nor look upon him (by his good will), but bid me 'Keep my eyes off him, for,' he said, 'they pierced him.' But now he was very loving and tender, and confessed in some measure to truth; his wife also and daughter were tender and kind, and we parted from them very lovingly."

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He had previously had a trying time with opponents who were "very unruly and troublesome" in some meetings held at the home of his friend Thomas Ellwood, at Hunger Hill, near London.

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This is an interesting letter to John III. of Poland, in which are given many passages from the words of sovereigns, both ancient and modern, in behalf of liberty of conscience. The letter is an able and valuable document, written, as the writer says, "in love to thy immortal soul and for thy eternal good." It closes with this postscript:

"Postscript. – 'Blessed be the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.' And remember, O king, Justin Martyr's two Apologies to the Roman emperors, in the defence of the persecuted Christians; and that notable Apology, which was written by Tertullian, upon the same subject; which are not only for the Christian religion, but against all persecution for religion."

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1680.

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1682.

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Here is a beautiful letter to those who are suffering:

"Dear, suffering lambs, for the name and command of Jesus; be valiant for His truth, and faithful, and ye will feel the presence of Christ with you. Look at Him who suffered for you, who hath bought you, and will feed you; who saith, 'Be of good comfort, I have overcome the world'; who destroys the devil and his works, and bruises the serpent's head. I say, look to Christ, your sanctuary, in whom ye have rest and peace. To you it is given not only to believe, but to suffer for His name's sake. They that will live godly in Christ Jesus, shall suffer persecution by the ungodly professors of Christ Jesus, who live out of Him. Therefore be valiant for God's truth upon the earth, and look above that spirit that makes you suffer, up to Christ, who was before it was, and will be when it is gone."

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In 1683.

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On First-day at the Savoy.

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Spring of 1684.

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The journal of the second visit to Holland gives little matter of fresh interest. The visit lasted from the 31st of May to the 16th of July, 1684.

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This letter to the Duke of Holstein ends as follows:

"I entreat the duke to consider these things. I entreat him to mind God's grace and truth in his heart that is come by Jesus; that by his Spirit of Grace and truth he may come to serve and worship God in his Spirit and truth; so that he may serve the living eternal God that made him, in his generation, and have his peace in Christ, that the world cannot take away. And I do desire his good, peace, and prosperity in this world, and his eternal comfort and happiness in the world that is everlasting. Amen.

G. F.

"London, 26th of the 8th Month, 1684."

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The Duke of Monmouth, illegitimate son of Charles II., landed in Lyme, in Devonshire, hoping to secure the throne, but he was defeated at Sedgemoor and captured July 6th, 1685.

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On the 16th of May James II. issued a warrant commanding that all Quakers who had been convicted on charges of præmunire, or for not swearing, or for not going to church, should be released. By the execution of this warrant about fifteen hundred Quakers were set free. Naturally the yearly meeting which followed was a happy time. This "Order of Release" is preserved in the Archives in Devonshire House in London. It is written on eleven skins of vellum, with the king's portrait at the top. In the list is the name of John Bunyan, who got included in this Royal Pardon.

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September, 1688.

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This letter was written October 17th, 1688. William landed in England November 5th, 1688.

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March, 1689.

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November, 1690.

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This epistle, the last he ever wrote, closes with a triumphant note and an optimistic outlook on the world:

"Christ the Seed reigns; and His power is over all, who bruises the serpent's head, and destroys the devil and his works, and was before he was. So all of you live and walk in Christ Jesus; that nothing may be between you and God, but Christ, in whom ye have salvation, life, rest and peace with God.

"As for the affairs of truth in this land and abroad, I hear that in Holland and Germany, and thereaway, Friends are in love, unity, and peace: and in Jamaica, Barbadoes, Nevis, Antigua, Maryland, and New-England, I hear nothing, but Friends are in unity and peace. The Lord preserve them all out of the world (in which there is trouble) in Christ Jesus, in whom there is peace, life, love, and unity. Amen. My love in the Lord Jesus Christ to all Friends everywhere in your land, as though I named them.

G. F.

"London, the 10th of the 11th month, 1690" (January 10th, 1691).