f people, and furnished the
looser with an occasion to profane.

CHAP. II.

_Of the rise of this People_, _their fundamental principle_, _and
doctrine_, _and practice_, _in twelve points resulting from it_: _their
progress and sufferings_: _an expostulation with England thereupon_.

At was about that very time, as you may see in George Fox's annals, that
the eternal, wise, and good God, was pleased, in his infinite love, to
honour and visit this benighted and bewildered nation, with his glorious
day-spring from on high; yea, with a more sure and certain sound of the
word of light and life, through the testimony of a chosen vessel, to an
effectual and blessed purpose, can many thousands say, glory be to the
name of the Lord for ever!

For as it reached the conscience, and broke the heart, and brought many
to a sense and search, so that which people had been vainly seeking
without, with much pains and cost, they, by this ministry, found within,
where it was they wanted what they sought for, viz. the right way to
peace with God. For they were directed to the light of Jesus Christ
within them, as the seed and leaven of the kingdom of God; near all,
because in all, and God's talent to all: a faithful and true witness, and
just monitor in every bosom. The gift and grace of God to life and
salvation, that appears to all, though few regard it. This the
traditional Christian, conceited of himself, and strong in his own will
and righteousness, overcome with blind zeal and passion, either despised
as a low and common thing, or opposed as a novelty, under many hard names
and opprobrious terms; denying, in his ignorant and angry mind, any fresh
manifestations of God's power and spirit in man, in these days, though
never more needed to make true Christians. Not unlike those Jews of old,
that rejected the Son of God, at the very same time that they blindly
professed to wait for the Messiah to come; because, alas! he appeared not
among them according to their carnal mind and expectation.

This brought forth many abusive books, which filled the greater sort with
envy, and lesser with rage; and made the way and progress of this blessed
testimony strait and narrow, indeed, to those that received it. However,
God owned his own work, and this testimony did effectually reach, gather,
comfort, and establish the weary and heavy-laden, the hungry and thirsty,
the poor and needy, the mournful and sick of many maladies, that had