that person shall The condition of

and receive his mark, in his forehead or in his hand, also drink of the wine of the wrath of God, &c.' the beast-worship is thus emphatical in the Greek. Chap. xv, 8. And no man was able to enter into the temple, till the seven plagues of the seven angels were filled:' to-wit, the phials containing them-the process being so dreadfully annoying. This is a wonderful image; and partakes of the more modern times of alchymy. It could not be the fulfilment of the plagues themselves; which occupies the next chapter.

Chap. xviii, 4-7. This passage is clearly a parenthesis: the people of God, in Babylon, are apostrophised in the midst of her sentence. There is a second of like kind, in ver. 20, addressed to those who are already delivered from her.

Ver. 21. And one mighty angel took up a stone.' We have eis for one, in the original, and may as well preserve the idiom thus.

Chap. xx, 9. And they went up on the breadth of the earth.' Does this mean, simply, that they spread themselves over the whole country; or that they went up, or marched, in vision, in the Geographical direction which was then accounted the earth's breadth: viz, between the North and South of the compass?

Chap. xxi, 16. The length and the height and the breadth of it are equal-to-wit of this city of 12,000 furlongs: yet the wall' is said to be one hundred and forty four cubits high! The text is either here corrupted, or the height has relation to the great and high mountain on which the city stood. The whole description is that of a Citadel, for state and splendour, in the midst of a most powerful and peaceful kingdom.

Ch. xxii, 2. • In the midst of the street of it [the city] having the river through it, stood on this side and on that, the tree of life, &c.' Here we have, again, the image of a perfect provision for the health and comfort of the inhabitants. A living stream in the midst of the street; and noble rows of trees, affording shade and producing both food and medicine, on each side of it.

Ver. 5. This verse ends the visions of the Apocalypse: the remainder is a communication relating to the whole subject, made after the Apostle had written it down.

Ver. 11. The Greek for still' is here eti. Is this the representative, in that tongue, of our Saxon yet?

Ver. 12. I have sometimes found the denunciation, here made against corrupters of the text, extended to the whole Bible: for which the circumstance of its being found at the end of the last book, as put together by the Church, affords certainly but very slight authority.

Here is a frequent change of the speaker in this last chapter. The matter of ver. 7, is resumed at ver. 12, the intervening sentences making a parenthesis: after which, verses 14 and 15 make another; the salutation at the end being, again, distinct from the rest. Ed.

ELCOCK, PRINTER, PONTEFRACT.

ART. I.—OBITUARY of early Ministers, &c. Accounts of Alexander Clarke, Stephen Smith, William Briggins, George Gregson, Luke Howard, John Wynn, Deborah Wynn.

The following Biographical Accounts form the beginning of a series (belonging to the Chronological Summary) which I promised at the end of my last Volume, and shall insert in this. They relate to persons who were active in the gathering of the Society of quakers, and who partook of the sufferings of that time.

Ed.

1. Alexander Clarke, by occupation a shepherd, whom the Lord visited in his youth when given to pleasure and worldly delights-was drawn from the public way of worship, of divers that professed God and Christ-seeing that their lives and conversation were not agreeable to their profession.'-Observing the people called quakers, he inclined to hear them and be joined unto them; but was cautioned by those professors that knew him to beware of the quakers, they telling him they were an erroneous and pernicious people: so that he became [on this hearsay ground] an earnest contender against them. But after some time, at Wellingboro', hearing William Dewsbury preach the gospel powerfully, he was convinced, became a frequent attender of Meetings, received the truth in the love of it and, waiting upon the Lord in silence, came to know the spirit and power of God to work in and upon him.

'As he was following his flock in the field, the word of the Lord came to him, and said to him, 'Be thou faithful and thou shalt prophesy. As indeed he did; and freely preached the Gospel of Christ.

Though he knew not letters, he was well acquainted with the word of life: he oft reached to the hearer's [conscience] and stirred up Friends to feel life-to whom he would often appeal, 'Ye are my witnesses in the Lord, that I am his servant, to serve you in love [the true definition of the Minister] and that I preach not myself but Christ the Lord.'

He laboured in this work near forty years (or to the seventy fifth of his age) and, a little before he died, gave Friends that came to visit him much good counsel and Christian advice-and charged his family to love God and each other, and not forget the Lord, saying 'Grace teacheth us all:' which was the last sentence. 'So this faithful servant of the Lord kept the faith, finished his course, and fell asleep in the Lord and is at rest.' Many Friends attended his body to the ground at Kettering, Northamptonshire, where he was honourably buried: Piety promoted 5th part. [The date is omitted in this Collection. Ed.]

2. Stephen Smith, born 1623, received the truth in the love of it in the year 1665, and gave up to obey it, and walk therein. He truly loved God's faithful messengers and people, and suffered with them in person and estate, for his tender conscience and testimony on behalf of Jesus Christ. [See George Fox's Journal 1670, and the Sufferings.'] He was a man fearing God, and of good report where he dwelt; being an exemplary preacher of righteousness in his conversation.-He travelled in divers parts of the nation, in the work and service of God in the Gospel of his Son.

In the time of his sickness, when he was in greatest extremity of weakness, he often declared of the loving kindness of the Lord God; by which he was upheld above the fear of death. In remembrance of the tender dealings of the Lord to him, he said to his sons present, 'My days are very near drawing to an end; and though my father and mother cast me off, when I was a little lad, the Lord hath always preserved me; and his blessing did always attend me having been often in great danger both by sea and land.'—And charged them always to do the thing that was right in the sight of the Lord, dealing justly and truly with all people, and wronging no man: having always regard to the fear of the Lord placed in their hearts, that thereby they might be preserved out of evil, and kept sober and chaste in their minds:-loving the good in all, and bearing testimony against the evil in all, wheresoever it did appear. And further said, 'And whensoever you go about that which is weighty, take counsel of good and wise Friends : that all things may be done to the glory and honour of the Lord and his blessed Truth; in which your blessings are all Yea and Amen [assured certainty] for ever!"

He departed praising and magnifying God, being filled with the Spirit and in perfect peace with the Lord, the 22nd of the Seventh Month, 1678, at his house near Guildford, Surry, aged 55 years. (a)

3. William Briggins, of London, was convinced of the blessed truth about the year 1671, the manner whereof was as followeth: He

(a) Piety Promoted, part 2.

had frequented the Presbyterian meetings; and about that time dissenters were persecuted, and the informers and officers came to their meeting, where he was. Their preacher slipt away by a private door; and he (as well as other hearers) made the best of his way to escape. Then it came unto his mind to go and see how it fared with the quakers. So he went to their meeting in Gracechurch-street, and got as much out of sight as he could. There, William Bailey was declaring, and after a little time came a mob and informers, with a band of soldiers [Sufferings, vol. i, p. 412]. These rushed into the meeting, and he expected the preacher to slip away; who to his great surprise went on preaching, till they had hauled him away and taken him to their guard. After they had carried him away, another Friend stood up and preached: and they returning took him away also. At this time, it opened in the mind of William Briggins that it was the truth they declared, and that they knew that was worth suffering for."

He became a quaker, and between that time and the year 1685, he met with great sufferings, and loss of goods, for his peaceable frequenting of meetings to worship the Lord; and was twice a prisoner, in the Counter and in Newgate, many months at a time: and by reason of his strait confinement he was much impaired in his health, grew weak and sickened.-In this state his eye was to the Lord: who, he often declared, had been good to him from his youth unto that day; and praised Him, that he was pleased to reveal the knowledge of his Son, our Lord and Saviour unto him. He advised all to be faithfulto keep above the encumbrance of worldly cares-to assist the poor and needy, and minister of their abundance to such in their necessity -and, whatsoever condition the Lord was pleased to suffer to come upon them, in that to be content: and that if at any time we are in distress, either inward or outward, if our dependance be on the Lord, and with an upright heart we patiently wait on him, he in his own time will work our deliverance-which' said he, I have experienced many a time.' He departed in much stillness, having bid all present farewell (b) the 27th of the 5th Month, 1688, in his sixtieth year.

4. George Gregson of Lisnegarvy (now Lisburn) Ireland, departed this life, 1690. He was born in Lancashire and educated a Papist; but adopted the principles of the people called quakers, and was faithful therein to his death. His conversion raised him many enemies among those whose communion he had deserted, and who propagated many false and malicious reports concerning him; which he bore with patience. He received a gift in the ministry, travelled in the exercise of it in Ireland and divers parts of England, and was a sufferer for his religious persuasion, both by imprisonment and spoil of goods. He retained his love to God and his brethren to the last period of his life; and at his death left a considerable part of his substance to several Meetings in Ireland, and to Friends in Lancashire. (c)

5. Luke Howard of Dover (who is several times mentioned in this work) departed this life the 7th of the 8th Month, O. S. 1699.

(b) Piety Promoted, part 5th.

(c) Gough iii, 290.

He was several times imprisoned; once in Dover Castle for sixteen months, because he could not forbear meetings. At this time he employed six men in his trade, but was obliged to shut up his shop for six months; neither could he work in the prison, for a time. But obtaining the liberty [or use] of an entry to the grate, where they drew their meat up with a cord, he worked a little there; and his wife kept cows and sold milk, to assist in supporting his family. And (he says) I had perfect peace, joy and content in it all: and the Lord made it good unto me, both within and without.' He had another long confinement, 1684; during which, he often pleaded with the Magistrates on account of their unjust and cruel treatment of him.

The following expressions were delivered by him and taken down by a Friend, in his last illness; God, the Lord of heaven and earth, who appeared to me in an acceptable time in the year 1655, by his word through his servants John Stubbs and William Caton, in the gift of his grace [through] the Son of his love Christ Jesus (whom he sent out of his own bosom) by the sword of his mouth and the brightness of his arising cut me off from the wild olive-tree, which I was rooted in by transgression, and grafted me into the true olive root, the life of which is the light of the world; and by his love and spirit in my heart raised me to worship him in spirit and [in] truth.

6

‹ Then, the cross appeared so great that, if it had been his will, I would rather have parted with my natural life (if I could have had peace) than to have taken it up. But in the day of his love and power, through the word of life and the arising thereof, I was made willing to do his will; and to take up the Cross, not for a little while, but with a resolution [to bear it] as long as life continued. And though many temptations hath attended, yet the Lord hath delivered out of them all; and hath engaged my soul and all within me to serve Him in newness of life; and begot and continued a breathing, that he would never give more knowledge than he would give me power to obey: and in the day thereof hath made me willing to serve Him, and deny myself and his reward is and hath been in my bosom.

In His peace stands my rest: which rest remains for the people of God and in this I take my leave of the world, with soul, body and spirit given up to the Lord, in and through his grace,-the life of Christ Jesus, in whom all the promises are Yea and Amen. (d) A lively, though old-fashioned account of the conversion and sanctification of this believer; in which self (proud self) is made to be nothing, and God's grace through Jesus Christ our Lord his all! Ed.

6. John Wynn of Bradford, Yorkshire, deceased 1699: a Minister about thirty-six years: convinced at a Meeting in Pall-Mall, about the coming in of Chas. II; being then in the army. Standing among the rest in their ranks to be viewed by some of the chief officers, he laid down his arms, because he could practise war no more. When discharged he went into Yorkshire, and worked at his trade, being a

(d) Piety Promoted, part 9.