London, the 25th of the Seventh
month, 1686.
In this year David Barclay died at Ury in Scotland. Before his
departure he uttered many excellent expressions indeed. I may not
omit to mention some particulars. In the latter end of September,
being past the 76th year of his age, he was taken with a fever, which
continued two weeks; and being much troubled with the gravel, his
sickness was accompanied with pain in making water. Two days before
his death, feeling his weakness, and being in an agony, he said to
his son Robert, who was with him, ‘I shall now go to the Lord, and be
gathered to many of my brethren who are gone before me.’ On the 11th
of October, very early in the morning, he growing weaker, the said
Robert Barclay signified to him, that his travail was, that He that
loved him might be near him to the end. To which he answered, ‘The Lord
is nigh;’ and said further to those about him, ‘Ye are my witnesses
in the presence of God, that the Lord is nigh.’ And a little after
he said, ‘The perfect discovery of the day-spring from on high, how
great a blessing it hath been to me and my family!’ Robert Barclay’s
wife asking if he would have something to refresh him, he said it
needed not; and laying his hand upon his breast, he said, ‘he had
that inwardly that refreshed him.’ A little while after, he was heard
several times to say, ‘The truth is over all:’ and taking his eldest
son to him, he blessed him, and said, ‘he prayed God he might never
depart from the truth.’ Then his son’s eldest daughter coming near,
he said, ‘Is this Patience?’ (for that was her name,) ‘Let patience
have its perfect work in thee.’ And after kissing the other four of
his son’s children, he laid his hands upon them, and blessed them.
His apothecary that attended him coming also near, he took him by the
hand, and said, ‘Thou wilt hear me witness, that in all this exercise I
have not been curious to tamper nor to pamper the flesh.’ To which the
apothecary said, ‘Sir, I can hear witness that you have always minded
the better and more substantial part; and I rejoice to see the blessed
end the Lord is bringing you to.’ To this the sick man replied, ‘Bear
a faithful and true witness: yet it is the life of righteousness, the
life of righteousness it is, that we bear testimony to, and not to an
empty profession.’ Then he called several times, ‘Come, Lord Jesus,
come, come!’ And said also, ‘My hope is in the Lord.’ Afterwards he
slept now and then for some hours; and seeing a carpenter coming
into the room, he said to his son, ‘See thou charge him to make no
manner of superfluity upon the coffin.’ In the afternoon several of
his friends came to see him, which he having observed, said they were
come in a seasonable time: and after some words were spoken, and that
Patrick Livingston had prayed, which ended in praises, the sick old
man held up his hands, and said, ‘Amen, amen, for ever!’ And after
those that were present stood up, he said, ‘How precious is the love of
God among his children, and their love to one another! thereby shall
all men know that ye are Christ’s disciples, if ye love one another.
How precious a thing it is to see brethren dwell together in love!
my love is with you; I leave it among you.’ Several of his friends,
pretty late at night, standing about the bed, and perceiving some of
them to weep, he said, ‘Dear friends, all mind the inward man, heed
not the outward. There is one that doth reward, the Lord of Hosts is
his name.’ Next morning, after he had heard the clock strike three, he
said, ‘Now the time comes.’ And a little after he was heard to say,
‘Praises, praises, praises to the Lord! Let now thy servant depart in
peace. Into thy hands, O Father, I commit my soul, spirit and body. Thy
will, O Lord, be done in earth as it is in heaven.’ These sentences he
spoke by little intervals, one after another; and soon after five in
the morning, the 12th of October, he slept in peace and quiet, there
being present at his end above twenty persons, who were witnesses to
what hath been here related. His corpse was attended to the grave by
numerous followers; and though he had ordered not many to be called to
his burial, yet a great number of the gentry came uninvited, from an
esteem they bore to his memory.
In this year also Anne Downer departed this life, one of the first
of those called Quakers at London: she had been married first to
Benjamin Greenwell, and was afterwards wife to George Whitehead. Being
taken ill, she removed to a place out of London, and her sickness
increasing, she perceived it was like to take her away. Her ancient
friend Mary Stout visiting her, asked her, if she knew her, she said,
‘Yes, very well, it is Mary Stout. I have my memory very well, and
my understanding is clear, though I am very weak; but I am given up
unto the will of the Lord, whether to die, or to live; for I have been
faithful to him in what I knew, both in life and death.’ Perceiving
some to be troubled concerning her, she said, ‘There is no cause for
you to be troubled or concerned; for I am well, and in peace.’ Many
Christian exhortations she gave on her dying bed, and said to some
of her friends who came to visit her, ‘What, do you come on purpose
to see me? I take it as an effect of the love of God, and I pray God
bless your children.’ To another she was heard to say, ‘If I never
see thy face more, it is well with me; God doth know my integrity,
and how I have been, and walked before him.’ The evening before she
died, she said to her husband, George Whitehead, &c. ‘The Lord is with
me, I bless his name. I am well; it may be you are afraid I shall be
taken away; and if it be, the will of the Lord be done. Do not trouble
yourselves, nor make any great ado about me; but, my dear, go to bed;
go to rest; and if I should speak no more words to thee, thou knowest
the everlasting love of God.’ She was heard also to say, that she had
done with all things in this life, and she had nothing to trouble her,
but was at true peace and easy every way. And a few hours before she
departed, she said, ‘Though I am in a dying condition, yet it is a
living death; for though weakness seizes the body, yet my understanding
is as clear as when in health.’ Thus she departed this life quietly,
about the age of sixty-three years, having been a woman well
gifted, and very serviceable to the church, not only with wholesome
exhortations, but also by her Christian care for the sick and poor, and
for widows, and orphans, who by her decease lost an eminent mother.
1687.
About this time George Fox wrote several general epistles, some of
which were pretty large, to his friends, exhorting them to shun strife,
to keep to mutual love and unity, and to mind true piety. He wrote many
other edifying papers; and since the Papists now appeared barefaced,
and performed their worship publicly, and there was much talk of their
praying to saints, and by beads; in the year 1687, he emitted the
following paper concerning prayer, not fearing to contradict openly
that which he judged to be superstition, though the king himself was of
the popish religion.
‘Christ Jesus when he taught his disciples to pray, said unto
them, “When ye do pray, say, Our Father, which art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name,” &c. Christ doth not say, that they should
pray to Mary the mother of Christ; nor doth he say, that they
should pray to angels, or to saints, that were dead. Christ did
not teach them to pray to the dead, nor for the dead. Neither did
Christ or his apostles teach the believers to pray by beads, nor
to sing by outward organs: but the apostle said, he would sing
and pray in spirit; for the spirit itself maketh intercessions;
and the Lord, that searcheth the heart, knoweth the mind of the
spirit.
‘To take counsel of the dead was forbidden by the law of God; but
they were to take counsel of the Lord: and he hath given Christ
in the new covenant, in his gospel-day, to be a counsellor and
a leader to all his believers in his light. And men are not to
run to the dead for the living: for the law and testimony of
God forbids it. Those Jews, that refused the running waters of
Shiloah, the floods and waters of the Assyrians and Babylonians
came over them, and carried them into captivity: and they that
refuse the waters of Christ, they are overflown with the flood
of the world, that lieth in wickedness. They that asked counsel
of stocks and stones, their state was in the spirit of error and
whoredom; and they were gone a whoring from God, Hos. iv. 12. And
they that joined themselves to Baal-Peor, and ate the sacrifices
of the dead, provoked the Lord’s anger, and brought the Lord’s
displeasure upon them, Psal. cvi. 28, 29. So here ye may see, the
sacrifices of the dead were forbidden. “The living know that they
shall die; but the dead know not any thing, neither have they
any more a reward, for the memory of them is forgotten,” Eccles.
ix. 5. “Wo to the rebellious children, saith the Lord, that take
counsel, but not of me; and that cover with a covering, but not
of my spirit, that they may add sin to sin.” Isa. xxx. 1.