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 ^SEP 15 I960 l 
 
 BX 7795 .S76 D6 1859 
 Story, Thomas, 1662-1742. 
 The doctrines of the Societ 
 of Friends 
 
THE 
 
 digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2015 
 
 https://archive.org/details/doctrinesofsocieOOstor 
 
DOCTRINES 
 
 OF TIIE 
 
 SOCIETY OF FRIENDS, 
 
 AS SET FORTH IN 
 
 THE LIFE AID "WRITINGS 
 
 OF 
 
 THOMAS STORY. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE 
 
 ASSOCIATION OF FRIENDS FOR TIIE DIFFUSION OF RELIGIOUS 
 AND USEFUL KNOWLEDGE, 
 No. 109 NORTH TENTH STREET. 
 
BRIEF MEMOIR 
 
 OF 
 
 THOMAS STORY. 
 
 Of all those firm upholders of the truth, whose 
 writing have come down to us out of the half-forgot- 
 ten past, we know of few, if any, better adapted to illus- 
 trate the Christian principles of the religious society 
 of Friends than Thomas Story, — one in whom 
 seem to have been combined the earnest, unwavering 
 faith of a true gospel minister, with the sound reason- 
 ing and clear discrimination of a man of high intel- 
 lectual attainments. 
 
 In offering to the reader a brief outline of his 
 biography, with selections from his writings, our 
 hope is to draw to them the attention and thoughtful 
 consideration of some who might not have time or 
 inclination to peruse them at large. 
 
 Before coming, however, to the matter immediately 
 in hand, a few general observations, bearing upon the 
 subject, may not be out of place in this connection. 
 An inward, iuvisible, spiritual Church, walking by 
 faith, and not by sight, and merged in, or surrounded 
 by, another outward or ceremonial religious system, 
 is clearly discernible far back in the history of our 
 race. In the days of Elijah the Prophet, the Priest 
 
4 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 and the Levite, who should have been shepherds of 
 the flock, had fled from their posts, and the great 
 mass of the chosen people, with their wicked rulers, 
 were left to worship Baal in the groves and upon the 
 high places: yet were there in Israel seven thousand 
 souls who bowed not down to the false idol, but con- 
 tinued faithfully serving the God of their fathers. 
 
 Long ages after, as we follow down the history of 
 the same wondrous people, who then, as formerly, may 
 be considered as representing the outward Church, we 
 shall find the priests and high professors of the day 
 ready to deliver up the Saviour of mankind to the 
 scourge and the cross; and only a few poor fishermen 
 and weeping women followed afar olf, fearful and 
 trembling, but faithful unto death. Again, in after- 
 years, and under a new dispensation, while Rome's 
 proud hierarchy stood with their feet upon the necks 
 of kings, and from her stately temples mocked Chris- 
 tianity with half-heathen rites, a few poor peasants, 
 hunted through caves and forests, still testified at the 
 gibbet and the stake that God is a Spirit, and must 
 be worshipped in spirit and in truth. These true 
 believers, thus following after the light that was still 
 clearly shining for them, though all around was dark- 
 ness, kept alive, through the long night of apostasy, 
 a feeble remnant of the real Church until the dawn- 
 ing of a brighter day, — that glorious epoch, when 
 the Holy Scriptures, buried for ages in an unknown 
 language, was given to the people in their mother 
 tongue. The long-imprisoned utterances of the 
 
THOMAS STORY. 
 
 5 
 
 Spirit, bursting forth like a mighty earthquake, shook 
 Europe to her centre for half a century; nor did the 
 good work cease until that most cunningly devised 
 system which, by availing itself of the intense longing 
 of the human soul for a Church universal, broad 
 enough to take in the whole race, and by substituting 
 for such a Church those false rites and shadowy sym- 
 bols, had so long held all Christendom under her iron 
 rule, was cast down from her high places, and a new 
 and far purer system, though still not perfect, took 
 its place. In short, the Reformation had been brought 
 about ; a work great and glorious indeed had been 
 wrought out in the earth, yet far short, evidently, of 
 a restoration of the Church to her condition in apos- 
 tolic times. The various sects calling themselves 
 Protestants, as protesting against the abuses of Rome, 
 yet widely differing among themselves in many par- 
 ticulars, all united in retaining certain outward ordi- 
 nances, and, with these ordinances, a separate, paid 
 body of men to administer them, called by various 
 names, but in reality (to all intents and purposes) a 
 priesthood, a large body of them claiming and appro- 
 priating to themselves, as successors of the sons of 
 Levi under a former dispensation, a tenth part of all 
 that the people possessed. Such a priestly order, we 
 contend, is incompatible with Christianity as esta- 
 blished by its blessed Founder. One Priest we have, 
 eternal in the Heavens, even Christ, and need no 
 other. Out of Judith was to come no priest, but out 
 of Levi, which priesthood is passed away. In the 
 1* 
 
6 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 primitive Christian Church was no separate order of 
 men corresponding to what is now called the clergy; 
 but the gifts of the Holy Spirit fell on all true mem- 
 bers, but not the same gifts to all : to one, prophecy 
 or preaching, to another, teaching, and various other 
 gifts, as of tongues, &c. Nor did they teach or preach 
 at their own fixed times and seasons, but spake only 
 as they were moved of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 Such a Church, we believe, Christ founded upon 
 earth then; and such ought to be his Church to-day; 
 for hath he not declared, "Lo, I am with you, even 
 unto the end of the world"? Let us search and ex- 
 amine if there has been since the days of Paul, or if 
 there be now, any sect, calling themselves Christian, 
 who seek after and believe in a Church with these 
 good gifts. 
 
 Our subject now demands that we leave these 
 general observations, and turn our attention to the 
 British islands, and to a most memorable epoch 
 in their religious as well as their political history. 
 The period to which we refer is the first half of the 
 seventeenth century, the eve of that revolution which 
 was to result in the overthrow of absolute monarchy 
 in England, and in the death of the ill-fated prince who 
 strove so blindly to contend against the [righteous] 
 indignation of a long-suffering and persecuted people. 
 With this great social revulsion were brought to the 
 surface new and strange religious doctrines. The 
 Episcopal or established Church, in the downfall of 
 the secular power with which it had been so long 
 
THOMAS STOR Y. 
 
 allied, soon lost its ancient prestige, and a host of 
 would-be reformers made their appearance on the 
 stage. Presbyterianisin would fain have clad herself 
 in the mantle which was falling from the shoulders 
 of the Prelacy, and have seated herself in high places. 
 This consummation was, however, prevented by the 
 prominent position now taken by a third sect, differ- 
 ing as widely in its peculiar tenets from the Presby- 
 terians as did the former from the ancient establish- 
 ment. These last — the Independents, as they were 
 called — professed a new and peculiar doctrine : no 
 written creeds or confessions of faith had been trans- 
 mitted from a former generation to this band of stern 
 enthusiasts : holding the belief that the only real 
 source of knowledge in relation to religion was to be 
 found in an inward revelation, they possessed no 
 settled clergy. Any member of their society, pro- 
 fessing to have received the gift of preaching from 
 an inward, spiritual revelation, was listened to with 
 the deepest reverence, as delivering an inspired mes- 
 sage. It was no unusual thing in the army of the 
 Commonwealth (whose ranks were principally re- 
 cruited from the sect described) for generals to 
 preach at the head of their divisions, captains to 
 their companies, or even private soldiers to such of 
 their fellows as were disposed to hear them. 
 
 In such a state of affairs, it would be natural to 
 look for a general toleration of religious opinion; but 
 such does not appear to have been the case. Church- 
 men, Presbyterians, and Independents were equally 
 
8 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 ready to persecute each other, and all who might hold 
 religious opinions at variance with their own special 
 dogmas. 
 
 As the primitive Christian Church never persecuted 
 for conscience' sake, and since the Saviour has him- 
 self declared that his kingdom was not of this world, 
 neither was to be set up and sustained by war and 
 bloodshed, no one of these religious bodies can with 
 justice claim to have been thorough reformers, or to 
 have restored in any great degree that Christianity 
 which characterized the Church in the days of the 
 apostles. As has been the case throughout all time, 
 we are not to look among the great and the powerful 
 for those deep things of the Spirit, which have been 
 ever hidden from the wise and prudent of this world 
 but have been made plain to all who were lowly and 
 simple-hearted. 
 
 In the same year that the royal standard of 
 King Charles I. had been set up on the castle of 
 Nottingham, a young man, the son of one Chris- 
 topher Fox, a weaver of Drayton, in Leicestershire, 
 began to attract the attention of the community 
 in which he lived, by his singular behavior. Born 
 in 1624, he had about this period — the year 1642 — 
 attained his nineteenth year. Even in his early 
 childhood he had been remarkable for the gravity of 
 his deportment, for the endeavors he made to live a 
 pure and righteous life, and for his rigid regard for 
 the truth in all his communications. Up to the 
 period referred to, he had resided at home with his 
 
THOMAS S T O It Y. 
 
 0 
 
 relations, when, having been solicited by his com- 
 panions to join in some of their merry-makings, of 
 which he could not approve, so great a weight came 
 upon his spirit that he could not sleep that night ; 
 but, passing the night in earnest prayer to the Lord, 
 it appeared to him that his supplications were an- 
 swered in these words, as it were spoken in his heart : 
 — "'Thou seest how young people go together into 
 vanity, and old people into the earth : therefore thou 
 must forsake all, both 3"oung and old, and be a stranger 
 unto them." Taking this for a divine admonition, 
 he left his home and friends and commenced a 
 solitary pilgrimage. Thus separating himself from 
 the world, he passed much time in reading the Scrip- 
 tures, and also fasted frequently. In this solitary 
 condition he underwent great inward suffering, so 
 much so that he strove in various ways to get from 
 under it, often consulting the ministers and professors 
 of several religious denominations ; but from them he 
 derived no comfort. One old minister to whom he 
 had applied for information in regard to the ground 
 of despair and temptation, advised him to take tobacco 
 and sing psalms. To this Fox replied that he was 
 no lover of tobacco, and as for psalms, he was in no 
 condition to sing them. Finding, at last, that none 
 of those from whose counsel he hoped to have derived 
 advantage were at all capable of even comprehending 
 his spiritual condition, and much less of giving him 
 any relief therein, he was led to believe that consola- 
 tion and enlightenment for him were only to be ob- 
 
10 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 tained by a patient waiting for the manifestations of 
 the Holy Spirit in the secret of his own soul. 
 
 Thus, faithfully waiting on the Lord, the dark 
 clouds upon his mind were taken away, and he felt 
 his soul to be illumined by that light which is de- 
 clared in Scripture " to enlighten every man that 
 cometh into the world." By this light he believed 
 it was revealed to him that neither a learned educa- 
 tion and a proficiency in the ancient languages, nor 
 any outward priestly ordination, could qualify any one 
 for the true gospel ministry. He saw that the Lord's 
 true ministers must, in those latter days, be sent and 
 qualified for that office by the same Holy Spirit which 
 had sent forth the first apostles. Believing himself 
 to be thus called and qualified, he was constrained to 
 go forth and preach the kingdom of God, as being 
 already come unto all those who had faith to believe, 
 and to receive Christ Jesus, the ever-living Word, in 
 his second or spiritual coming. Thus, clothed with 
 authority, and trusting that words should be given 
 him to speak, he wandered from city to city, through 
 town and country, in the market-places, and in the 
 places of public worship, calling on all people, of 
 whatever age, sex, or condition, to look in their own 
 hearts for the teaching of that divine grace which 
 should lead them from sin and darkness into all truth, 
 and deliver them out of their fallen state into a con- 
 dition of freedom from sin. 
 
 He taught that true baptism was not a baptism of 
 w r ater, to put away the filth of the flesh, but the 
 
THOMAS STORY. 
 
 11 
 
 cleansing of the human soul from sin ; that the out- 
 ward eating of bread and wine could not represent 
 the true supper of the Lord ; but that the Saviour's 
 words on the memorable occasion of the last passover 
 were intended rather to warn his disciples that this 
 Jewish ordinance was no longer to be continued in, 
 than to enjoin it upon them as an essential part of, 
 his new dispensation ; that all wars and fighting were 
 contrary to the direct teaching of our Lord. He bore 
 a testimony against all oaths, as unlawful under the 
 new dispensation, citing the direct command of 
 Christ, " Swear not at all." 
 
 These doctrines, we can well understand, sounded 
 strangely in the ears of that generation, (as indeed 
 they do to many even at this day,) aud the promul- 
 gator of them soon found that his path was beset with 
 toils and dangers innumerable. 
 
 The clergy, fearing that with the abolition of out- 
 ward ordinances and human ordination their own 
 occupation would be gone, began to stir up a bitter 
 persecution against this bold innovator. 
 
 Magistrates issued warrants for his apprehension, 
 and cast him into loathsome dungeons, among felons 
 and murderers, there to languish for weeks and 
 months together. He was ofttimes thrown down 
 and cruelly beaten and mangled, stoned by the mob 
 through the towns and villages, and so cruelly mal- 
 treated in various ways, as to be put often in great 
 peril of his life. 
 
 All this could not deter him from the work to 
 
L2 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 which he had been called ; but, patiently bearing all 
 these persecutions, making no effort at resistance, he 
 turned his cheek to the smiter, and freely forgave 
 his cruel enemies. Nor did this great faith and 
 patience long go unrewarded. Even from the first, 
 multitudes flocked to hear from all parts, and though 
 many were callous, and violent against the truth, yet 
 many others, feeling the presence of the Lord, were 
 humbled and brought low before him ; so that some 
 who had at first been most bitter against this meek 
 and patient disciple became afterward warm and able 
 advocates of his doctrine, suffering also many perse- 
 cutions, some even uuto death, for the truth's sake. 
 
 Thus it pleased the Lord to raise up, from small 
 beginnings, a great congregation, who should worship 
 him in spirit and in truth, — a peculiar people, living 
 in the world, yet not of it, called in derision Quakers, 
 because they did quake and tremble at the word of 
 God ; but calling themselves Friends, because they 
 are at peace with all men, and, through the love of 
 God in their souls, would fain be the friends of all 
 mankind. Let the fruits they have produced, and 
 the works they have wrought, even to this day, tried 
 by the touchstone of Holy Scripture, testify of them, 
 whether the spirit they have followed be of God or no. 
 
 Having thus briefly sketched the outline of the 
 rise and progress of this peculiar people, we will 
 endeavor more fully to illustrate their faith and 
 practice, in some account of the life and conversation 
 of one of its individual members, whose eminent 
 
THOMAS STORY. 
 
 13 
 
 services in the good work of the gospel may well 
 entitle him to be cited as a fair example of the whole. 
 We allude to Thomas Story. 
 
 A period of more than forty years had elapsed from 
 the first preachiDg of George Fox to the beginning 
 of Thomas Story's ministry. King Charles the First 
 slept in a bloody grave. The long session of that 
 memorable parliament had been brought to a sudden 
 close by the bayonets of the army, the great com- 
 mander and idol of the army, Cromwell, in his turn, 
 had gone to his account, and the second Charles was 
 drawing near the end of his life and of his reign, 
 while the subject of our memoir was still a youth. 
 The Thomas Story of our memoir was the son of 
 Thomas Story, of Justicetown, in the county of Cum- 
 berland, a gentleman of good estate and standing in 
 the county, and a member of the Episcopal or esta- 
 blished Church. From his early youth, he says in his 
 journal, "I believe the Lord had his eye upon me 
 for my good, inclining my heart to seek after him in 
 my tender years ; and from hence I conclude arose 
 that early inclination I had for solitude, where I 
 sometimes had religious thoughts, and frequently 
 read the Holy Scriptures, which I ever loved above 
 all books, especially the New Testament, in which I 
 chiefly delighted/' 
 
 Notwithstanding his religious inclinations, Thomas 
 Story, as he grew up, found himself under cir- 
 cumstances very disadvantageous to religious ad- 
 vancement. His father, intending him for a law- 
 2 
 
14 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 yer, sent him to a fencing-school to learn the 
 use of the small sword, an accomplishment con- 
 sidered at that time indispensable to a genteel 
 education : in this art he became in a short time 
 quite a proficient, and also acquired a considerable 
 skill in music. In the exercise of these accomplish- 
 ments, he informs us, his mind was much diverted 
 from serious things, though he was preserved from 
 those things which are generally accounted evils 
 among mankind. Arriving at a proper age, he was 
 put to the study of the law under a counsellor in the 
 country. The family in which he was placed were 
 religiously inclined, being moderate Presbyterians. 
 Living at this time a retired life, and seeing little of 
 society at large, much of his leisure was devoted to 
 silent meditation, and search after truth. Though 
 educated in the national Church of England, he had 
 no special prejudices in favor of that way of worship, 
 but was frequently in the habit of attending the 
 meetings of the other religious denominations; yet 
 when he came to consider their doctrines closely he 
 could entirely approve of no one of them. On one 
 occasion he attended the preaching of a famous 
 Presbyterian minister : it was during the latter part 
 of the reign of Charles the Second, when persecu- 
 tion was rife against all dissenters from the national 
 Church; and the meeting was held at night, in a pri- 
 vate upper room, with a watch set below. Here, says 
 Thomas, " I expected to have heard something like 
 doctrine; but all that he entertained the audience 
 
THOMAS STORY. 
 
 15 
 
 with, was suggestions of dislike and jealousy against 
 the Government j and this delivered in a way whicli 
 to me was extremely disagreeable/' On another 
 occasion he attended a meeting of Friends at Brough- 
 ton, in Cumberland, but could gather little either 
 from their manner or doctrine, but took them to be 
 an honest, well-meaning sect. Toward the latter end 
 of the year 1687, having completed his legal studies, 
 he came into the city of Carlisle, and occupied cham- 
 bers there, with a view to the practice of his profes- 
 sion. At this period James II. was at the height 
 of his power, and making great efforts to overturn 
 Episcopacy, and to introduce Popery as the esta- 
 blished religion. As far as was in the power of the 
 king, all offices of trust and emolument were bestowed 
 upon Papists; and, such being the case, there was no 
 scarcity of nominal Protestants, ready, for the sake 
 of private advantage, to take a very lenient view of 
 the errors of popery, so long as such errors were 
 accompanied by the power to bestow fat offices and 
 high dignities. 
 
 The prospects of the Romanists being thus flatter- 
 ing at the period referred to, they grew correspond- 
 ingly imperious and insolent on all occasions; and, 
 in many instances, those whose duty it should have 
 been to stand in the breach, in defence of civil and 
 religious freedom, were only too ready to aid and abet 
 in these aggressions. 
 
 On one occasion, at the Carlisle assizes, Thomas 
 Story happened to be dining at an inn with a com- 
 
16 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 pany of gentlemen, among whom were two ministers 
 of the Church of England, when a popish gentleman 
 at the table started a discussion on the doctrine of 
 transubstantiation, undertaking to prove from Scrip- 
 ture that, by virtue of certain words pronounced over 
 the wafer or sacramental bread, there was an actual 
 conversion of it into the real body of Christ, — the 
 very same which was born of the Virgin Mary, cruci- 
 fied at Jerusalem, and now ascended into heaven. 
 
 The text of Scripture advanced in support of this 
 doctrine was, " And, as they were eating, Jesus took 
 bread and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, say- 
 ing, Take, eat, this is my body." From which he 
 argued that Christ being the Word of God, and the 
 truth, whatever he said must be positively and 
 literally true; and therefore there is a real change 
 of the bread into the actual body of Christ; and, this 
 being an ordinance of God to his ministers, the same 
 power is annexed to that ordinance, since he com- 
 manded them to do the same thing, saying, " This do 
 in remembrance of me." During this harangue the 
 zeal of our young seeker after truth was kindled to 
 such a degree that he could with difficulty keep 
 silent ; but. being then very young and diffident, he 
 said nothing for some time, expecting that the minis- 
 ters of the Protestant Church would have certainly 
 attacked the Papist's position ; but as they hung down 
 their heads, and appeared busy with their plates, he 
 could keep silent no longer, but replied in the follow- 
 ing remarks, which appear to us a most clear and 
 
THOMAS STOR Y. 
 
 17 
 
 logical refutation of that absurd dogma, for which so 
 much blood has been shed and so many Christian 
 martyrs have suffered cruel torture, and yet for which 
 even the great Martin Luther, while he trusted in 
 the letter, and neglected the spirit, was a strenuous 
 advocate. 
 
 M You of the Church of Rome take these words lite- 
 rally ; but we take the whole form of his speech at 
 that time, on that subject, to be figurative; and that 
 these words, 'This is my body/ intended no more 
 than, This bread is a symbol, or figure, or representa- 
 tion, of my body, which shall shortly hereafter be 
 broken for you; for we ought not to divide the sen- 
 tence or speech of Christ, and take one part literally 
 and another figuratively. And you may remember 
 that, at the same time, he also took the cup, saying, 
 ' This cup is the New Testament, in my blood, which 
 is shed for you.' Do you think that that cup, whether 
 of gold, silver, glass, or wood, was the New Testa- 
 ment? Or can't jou see that in this latter part of 
 his speech there is a double figure ? First, the thing 
 containing for the thing contained : and secondly, the 
 wine in the cup, exhibited under the word cup, as a 
 figure or representation of his blood ; which was not 
 then actually or literally shed, or his body broken. 
 And seeing he said, in the present tense, ' This is 
 my body, which is broken (not to be broken) for you; 
 and this cup is the New Testament in my blood, 
 which is (not which shall hereafter be) shed for 
 you;' you must either own that Christ advanced a 
 2* 
 
is 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 false proposition, which you will not; or that he 
 spoke figuratively in both sentences, which you can- 
 not reasonably avoid. Besides, the words uttered by 
 Christ himself did not work that effect you imagine; 
 for no man can call a thing by any name, denoting 
 its existence, before it is that thing which it is called; 
 [then taking up a plate] no man, for instance, can 
 truly and literally say, This is a plate, if it were not 
 a plate before. Then, by a parity of reason and 
 truth, Christ could not say, This bread is my body, if 
 it were not his body before. Therefore these words 
 made no alteration, for it was so before : these words 
 were only declarative of what was before, and not 
 initiatory, or commeucive, of a new being, which was 
 not there before. Again, if ever these words had 
 effected a transubstantiation, they would when Christ 
 himself uttered them. Consider then, pray, that as 
 soon as Christ began to speak these words, ' This is 
 my body,' the body of Christ, born of the Virgin 
 Mary, began to cease to be his body, and the bread 
 begau to convert into it; and that, as soon as the 
 words were finished, the body born of the Virgin 
 altogether ceased to be what it was before, and, by 
 a new way of corporeal transmigration, insinuated 
 itself into the bread; which, by the same degrees 
 that the body of Christ ceased to be his body, com- 
 menced, proceeded, grew, and became his body; or 
 else he had two bodies present with his disciples at 
 the same time ; and if they eat his body that evening, 
 what body was that which was crucified the next 
 
THOMAS STORY. 
 
 11* 
 
 day? And what blood was then shed, if, the night 
 before, the disciples had drank the blood of Jesus in 
 a proper and literal sense, and without a figure ? And 
 where now is that same cup ? If you have lost that, 
 you have, in your own sense, lost the New Testament, 
 and all your share therein. Now, if you can persuade 
 me and this company out of our senses and under- 
 standings, so that we may be able to believe, against 
 both, that a piece of bread is the body of Christ, and 
 a cup of wine is his blood, then you may bid fair for 
 our conversion, or rather perversion, to your religion. 
 But, till you can do that, you cannot reasonably 
 expect we should embrace so great absurdities. " Upon 
 this, several of the company laughed j and the Papist 
 said these were great mysteries, and the subject 
 copious and intricate, and could not at that time be 
 fully prosecuted, but might be more largely discussed 
 at some other convenient opportunity. I replied, 
 "Then why did you move it? Could you think we 
 would all sit silent, to hear you propagate such 
 notions, and make no opposition V And so the matter 
 dropped. But, though I had thus opposed him, he 
 showed more respect to me afterward than to any 
 other of the company. 
 
 After the dinner was over, and the ministers, with 
 Thomas Story, meeting in another apartment, they 
 complimented him highly on his able defence of 
 Protestantism. This flattery, however, only drew from 
 him a severe reproof of their cowardice and tempo- 
 
20 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 rizing, and he left them with a greatly-diminished 
 respect both for such a clergy and for all mere out- 
 ward professors of religion. 
 
 Not long after this occurrence, toward the end of 
 August, 1688, that true Protestant and noble advocate 
 of true liberty of conscience, the Prince of Orange, 
 arrived in England; and forthwith the same clergy 
 who had, while the power of James II. continued, 
 been strenuously advocating the doctrine of passive 
 obedience and non-resistance to the royal authority 
 to their hearers, ran considerable risk of being them- 
 selves found in open rebellion. Amid these changes 
 and revolutions in public affairs, the readiness with 
 which those whom our friend had been accustomed 
 to look up to in all matters of religion were willing 
 to adapt their doctrine to suit their own temporal 
 advancement, brought his mind into a close examina- 
 tion of the true nature of worship j and, under a sense 
 of humiliation and sorrow for his own want of an 
 experimental knowledge of God, he often prayed for 
 the divine guidance and help in a concern of such 
 vital importance. 
 
 Thus, turning away from all outward creeds and 
 professions, and looking only within, he there found 
 a principle manifesting itself as a faithful reprover 
 of all sin; and though, says he, (i I knew not then 
 what this reprover was, yet it exerted upon me such 
 an influence as to reform me from those habits which 
 in time might have been the foundation of great evils." 
 Though thus reproved and influenced, there were yet 
 
THOMAS STORY. 
 
 21 
 
 many tempting allurements offered to lead him away 
 from serious consideration. Young and accomplished, 
 with an intellect far above the common, and cultivated 
 to a high degree, his slightest efforts might have put 
 him in possession of the best gifts which this world 
 has to bestow upon her favorite children. At this 
 time, he informs us, he was in the habit of wearing 
 a sword and carrying fire-arms when he travelled 
 abroad, and was well acquainted with the use of these 
 weapons : at the same time, he was never quarrel- 
 some, making it a rule never to offend or give an 
 affront to any one designedly, and was always ready 
 to apologize if he had inadvertently given offence. 
 Yet, with all this, he was determined always to resent 
 and punish any intentional insult. Such an insult, he 
 informs us, he never met with but on one occasion, 
 and then kept to his own maxims successfully, 
 managing neither to wound nor to be wounded. 
 
 In process of time, as these worldly dispositions 
 would have grown strong in him, he was favored to 
 more fully comprehend the true nature and end of 
 all such things, and the necessity of the great work 
 of regeneration began to be deeply impressed upon 
 his mind, while at the same time, feeling that hither- 
 to he had no experience of such a work wrought in 
 himself, and realizing forcibly the uncertainty of 
 human life, great fear came upon him, and with it a 
 sense of the vanity and worthlessness of all worldly 
 power and greatness. About this time a narrow 
 escape from death, by his horse falling, had the effect 
 
22 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 to bring most vividly before him the urgent and 
 absolute necessity of some preparation for that awful 
 event; and being thus brought into closer self-exami- 
 nation, and not finding himself in a fit condition for 
 heaven, — as yet having no evidence of that necessary 
 work of regeneration in his own soul, — a settled sad- 
 ness and grief came upon his spirit, from which he 
 could not escape until, through the mercy of God, he 
 was favored with a clearer knowledge and a better 
 state. Hitherto he had known the grace of God 
 only as making manifest sin and evil in himself, and 
 reproving and condemning all the thoughts, desires, 
 passions, and affections which belong to man's first 
 or carnal nature, and had not yet experienced it as 
 able to work in him faith, sanctification, consolation, 
 and redemption. Yet the Lord did not leave him 
 here, but in great mercy followed him still more 
 closely, until the good work should be completed; 
 and here, quoting from his autobiography, we would 
 invite the attention of our readers to the following 
 extract from his journal : — 
 
 " Being moved by his own free mercy and goodness, 
 even in the same love in which he sent his Son, the 
 beloved, into the world, to seek and save the lost; 
 on the 1st day of the second month, in the evening, 
 in the year, according to the common account, 1689, 
 being alone in my chamber, the Lord brake in upon 
 me unexpectedly, quick as lightning from the 
 heavens, and as a righteous, all-powerful, all-know- 
 ing, and sin-condemning Judge ; before whom my 
 
THOMAS STORY. 
 
 23 
 
 soul, as in the deepest agony, trembled, was con- 
 founded and amazed, and filled with such awful dread 
 as no words can reach or declare. 
 
 " My mind seemed plunged into utter darkness, and 
 eternal condemnation appeared to enclose me on every 
 side, as in the centre of the horrible pit, — never to 
 see redemption thence, or the face of him in mercy, 
 whom I had sought with all my soul. But in the 
 midst of this confusion and amazement, where no 
 thought could be formed, or any idea retained, save 
 eternal death possessing my whole man, a voice was 
 formed and uttered in me : — ' Thy will, 0 God, be 
 done : if this be thy act alone, and not my own, I 
 yield my soul to thee.' In conceiving these words 
 from the Word of Life, I quickly found relief : there 
 was all-healing virtue in them • and the effect was so 
 swift and powerful, that, even in a moment, all my 
 fears vanished, as if they had never been, and my 
 mind became calm and still, and simple as a little 
 child j the day of the Lord dawned and the Sun of 
 Righteousness arose in me, with divine healing and 
 restoring virtue in his countenance; and he became 
 the centre of my mind. 
 
 "In this wonderful operation of the Lord's power, 
 denouncing judgment in tender mercy, and in the 
 hour of my deepest concern and trial, I lost my old 
 self, and came to the beginning of the knowledge of 
 Him, the just and Holy One, whom my soul had 
 longed for. I now saw the whole body of sin con- 
 demned in my own flesh ; not by particular acts, as 
 
24 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 whilst travelling in the way to a perfect moral state 
 only, but by one stroke and sentence of the great 
 Judge of all the world, of the living and of the dead, 
 the whole carnal mind, with all that dwelt therein, 
 was wounded, and death begun; as self-love, pride, 
 evil thoughts, and every evil desire, with the whole 
 corruption of the first state and natural life. 
 
 "Here I had a taste and view of the agony of the 
 Son of God, and of his death and state upon the cross, 
 when the weight of the sins of all human kind were 
 upon him, and when he trod the wine-press alone, 
 with none to assist him. Now all my past sins were 
 pardoned and done away; my own willings, runnings, 
 searchings, and strivings were at an end j and all my 
 carnal reasonings and conceivings about the know- 
 ledge of God, and the mysteries of religion, were 
 over ; which had long exercised my mind, being then 
 natural, both day and night, and taken away my 
 desire of food and natural repose. But now my sor- 
 rows ended, and my anxious cares were done away ; 
 and this true fear being, to me, the initiation into 
 wisdom, I now found the true sabbath, a holy, heavenly, 
 divine, and free rest, and most sweet repose. This 
 deep exercise being over, I slept till the next morn- 
 ing, and had greater and better refreshment and 
 comfort than I had felt for some weeks before. 
 
 " The next day I found my mind calm and free from 
 anxiety, in a state like that of a young child. In 
 this condition I remained till night; and about the 
 same time in the evening that the visitation, before 
 
THOMAS STORY. 
 
 25 
 
 related, came upon me, my whole nature and being, 
 both mind and body, was filled with the divine pre- 
 sence in a manner I had never known before, nor had 
 ever thought that such a thing could be, and of 
 which none can form any idea but what the Holy 
 thing itself doth give. 
 
 " Divine Truth was now self-evident : there wanted 
 nothing else to prove it. I needed not to reason about 
 him; all that was superseded by that divine and 
 truly wonderful evidence and light, which proceeded 
 from himself alone, leaving no place for doubt, or 
 any question at all. For as the sun, in the open 
 firmament of heaven, is not discovered or seen, but 
 by his own light, and the mind of man determines 
 thereby, at sight, and without any train of reasoning, 
 what he is, even so, and more than so, by the over- 
 shadowing influence and divine virtue of the Highest, 
 was my soul assured that it was the Lord. I saw 
 him in his own light, by that blessed and holy 
 medium which of old he promised to make known 
 to all nations ; by that eye which he himself had 
 formed and opened, and also enlightened by the 
 emanation of his own eternal glory. 
 
 "Thus I was filled with perfect consolation, which 
 none but the Word of Life can declare or give. It 
 was then, and not till then, I knew that God is love, 
 and that perfect love which castcth out all fear. It 
 was then I knew that God is eternal light, and that 
 in him is no darkness at all. 
 
 "I was highly favored also with a view of the manner 
 
20 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 of the operation of the Almighty, in assuming human 
 nature, and clothing therewith his inaccessible divine 
 light and glory, even with an innocent, holy, and 
 divine soul and mind, homogeneal to the children of 
 men ; as with a veil, whereby the Most High con- 
 descended to the low condition of man, and in whom 
 also man, being refined as the tried gold, and thereby 
 fitted for the Holy One, can approach to him, as by a 
 proper medium, and therein dwell with the Lord and 
 enjoy him forever." 
 
 It has been said, by some in our time, that the day 
 of miracles has long since ceased on earth, and, so 
 far as outward and tangible ones are concerned, they 
 are indeed rare, (in this last time;) yet have we not, 
 in this simple but most graphic account of the opera- 
 tion of the Holy Spirit on the soul, evidence incon- 
 trovertible of a great and wonderful miracle ? — not, 
 indeed, the calling up from death to life of the frail 
 body, but the awakening from death unto life ever- 
 lasting of an immortal spirit. And now, before leaving 
 this part of our subject, it may be well for us deeply 
 to consider its bearing upon that all-important sub- 
 ject, the conversion of the soul, and to examine a 
 little into the manner in which this particular con- 
 version appeared to have been brought about. Surely 
 it was not by any human power : there was no out- 
 ward temple consecrated and set apart for such a 
 work; no robed and surpliced priest was there with 
 book and chalice; no deep-toned organ filled the air 
 with floods of melody, nor thrilling words of glowing 
 
T H OMAS STOR Y. 
 
 27 
 
 eloquence fell from well-trained lips upon the ear; 
 but alone in the quiet chamber, in the deep silence 
 of all flesh, an earnest spirit, broken and bowed down 
 as in the presence of the great God of all the earth, 
 is waiting in patience and humble hope for the ap- 
 pearing of Him who was crucified and is risen again, 
 willing and able to save to the uttermost. Nor did he 
 wait in vain; for in the very extremity he was enabled 
 to say, " Thy will, 0 Lord, be done j" and then, as 
 it were in a momeut, a light shone out of the thick 
 darkness, making manifest that as he had been dead 
 in sin, so now, by the power of God alone, sin had 
 been slain in him, and he had been raised up from 
 this spiritual death, a new man in Christ Jesus, born 
 of the spirit, and brought into a condition of holy, 
 heavenly rest, a true and never-ending sabbath. 
 
 These secret manifestations of divine grace were at 
 this time kept confined in his own breast, no one 
 knowing as yet any thing of them. An alteration was 
 evident in his demeanor, but the cause of it was un- 
 explained : his usual manners and fashionable address 
 were now laid aside : he gave up the sword, which he 
 had worn hitherto rather because it was fashionable 
 and ornamental than with any design of using it, 
 and also divested his dress of all superfluities and 
 ornaments. These particulars are mentioned here, 
 since it goes to show that, although at this time 
 Thomas Story had no knowledge whatever of the 
 society of Friends, he was unconsciously an imitator 
 of their practice in this respect, and that, however 
 
t 
 
 28 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 trivial and unimportant mere matters of dress may 
 appear to some of the younger members of that society 
 in these present times, we have here the example of 
 a true Christian convert, who certainly could have then 
 had no sectarian prejudices on the subject, for making 
 such things a matter of serious consideration. He 
 now declined altogether attending the public worship 
 of the society in which he had been educated, — not, 
 however, with the intention of joining any other sect, 
 for he was then disposed to conclude that these views 
 were peculiar to himself, and that no religious body 
 then existed with whom he could unite. 
 
 For some time he continued thus alone and retired, 
 often spending much time in silent waiting for the 
 openings of divine grace in his heart, and sometimes 
 committed to writing his understanding and explana- 
 tion of certain passages of Scripture. 
 
 Among other things written about this period, he 
 has left us the following prayer, — so fervent, and so 
 applicable to the condition of every earnest soul, and 
 at the same time clothed in such beautiful words, that 
 we insert it here entire, not doubting that it will 
 claim an attentive perusal : — 
 
 "0 almighty, incomprehensible, and infinitely 
 merciful Lord God, forasmuch as none can enter into 
 thy rest unless he be regenerated and renewed, I 
 humbly beg, in the name and for the sake of thy Son 
 Christ, that thou wilt be pleased to wash me in the 
 water of life, and purify my polluted soul with the 
 holy fire of thine infinite love; that I may live in 
 
T SOMAS S T 0 II Y. 
 
 29 
 
 thee, and walk in the living way of truth, love, peace, 
 joy, righteousness, holiness, temperance, and patience, 
 so long as thou art pleased to continue uie in this 
 garden of labor. And be my strength, 0 my right- 
 eousness ! that I go not astray from thy paths, through 
 the frailty of this earthly tabernacle; but give me 
 daily the bread of life, which thou freely holdest 
 forth to the hungry all the day long. And inasmuch 
 as none can eat of this bread but those who hunger 
 and thirst after righteousness, give me a fervent 
 desire, 0 my salvation ! and a saving faith, a living 
 faith, to lay hold on thy most certain promise ; that 
 I may be made partaker of the glory that is laid up 
 for thy servants in thine everlasting habitations." 
 
 As it is not our intention in these pages to attempt 
 a regular biography or to go much iuto detail, we 
 pass over a considerable period. Some time in the 
 fifth month of the year 1G91, says Thomas Story in 
 his journal, while writing a paragraph, "the people 
 called Quakers were suddenly brought to my mind, 
 and so strongly impressed upon it that thenceforward 
 I had a strong desire to make inquiry into their ways 
 and principles." An opportunity soon offered itself to 
 him for the desired investigation. Having some 
 business-affairs to attend to in the west of Cumberland, 
 he lodged one night at an inn kept by a Friend ; and, 
 engaging in conversation, they discovered a mutual 
 similarity of opinion in many particulars. This led to 
 au invitatiou from the Friend to attend one of their 
 meetings, to be held the following day; and, Thomas 
 3* 
 
30 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 Story being very desirous to inform himself person- 
 ally concerning the doctrines and worship of that 
 society, 'he went next day with the Friend to attend 
 the meeting. His first impressions of the society and 
 of the meeting are best related in his own words, as 
 follows : — 
 
 " When we came to the meeting, being a little late, 
 it was full gathered; and I went among the throng 
 of the people on the forms, and sat still among them 
 in that inward condition and mental retirement. And 
 though one of their ministers, a stranger, began to 
 speak on some points held by them, and declaim 
 against some things held by others and denied by 
 them, particularly predestination as asserted by the 
 Presbyterians, yet I took not much notice of it. I 
 did not doubt but, like all other sects, they might 
 have something to say, bo'th for their own and against 
 the opinions of others; yet my concern was much 
 rather to know whether they were a people gathered 
 under a sense of the enjoyment of the presence of 
 God in their meetings ; or, in other words, whether 
 they worshipped the true and living God, in the life 
 and nature of Christ, the Son of God, the true and 
 only Saviour. And the Lord answered my desire 
 according to the integrity of my heart. 
 
 "For, not long after I had sat down among them, 
 that heavenly and watery cloud overshadowing my 
 mind brake into a sweet abounding shower of celestial 
 rain, and the greatest part of the meeting was broken 
 together, dissolved and comforted in the divine 
 
THOMAS S T 0 It Y. 
 
 3] 
 
 presence of the true, heavenly Lord ; which was 
 divers times repeated before the meeting ended. In 
 the same way, by the same divine power, I had been 
 often favored before when alone, and when no eye 
 but that of Heaven beheld, or any knew, but the 
 Lord himself ; who, iu infinite mercy, had been 
 pleased to bestow so great a favor. 
 
 "And, as many small springs and streams, descend- 
 ing iuto a proper place and forming a river, become 
 more deep and weighty, even so, thus meeting with 
 a people gathered of the living God, into a sense of 
 the enjoyment of his divine and living presence, 
 through Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Saviour 
 of the world, I felt an increase of the joy of the sal- 
 vation of God; and the more, by how much I now 
 perceived I had been under the like mistake as the 
 prophet of God of old, but now was otherwise in- 
 formed, by a sure evidence and token, — by the witness 
 of the divine truth, in which no living soul can err 
 or be deceived, being self-evident and undeniable in 
 all those who truly know him. 
 
 " Our joy was mutual and full, though in many 
 tears, as in cases of the deepest and most unfeigued 
 love ; for the Friends there, being generally sensible 
 I was affected and tendered with them, by the influ- 
 ence of the divine truth they knew and made profes- 
 sion of, did conclude I had been at that time, and 
 not before, convinced and come to the knowledge of 
 the way of truth among them ; and their joy was as 
 of heaven at the return of a penitent, and mine as 
 
32 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR 01 
 
 the joy of salvation from God, in view of the work 
 of the Lord so far carried on in the earth ; when I 
 had thought, not long before, there had scarcely been 
 any true and living faith or knowledge of God in the 
 world. 
 
 " The meeting being ended, the peace of God which 
 passeth all the understanding of natural men, and is 
 inexpressible by any language but itself alone, re- 
 mained as a holy canopy over my mind, in a silence 
 out of the reach of all words, and where no idea but 
 the Word himself can be conceived. But being- 
 invited, together with the ministering Friend, to the 
 house of the ancient widow Hall, I went willingly 
 with them j but, the sweet silence commanded in me 
 still remaining, I had nothing to say to any of them 
 till He was pleased to draw the curtain and veil his 
 presence ; and then I found my mind pure, and in a 
 well-bounded liberty of innocent conversation with 
 them. 
 
 " Having stayed there a short time, I was invited 
 to dinner at the house of Richard Ribton, an ancient 
 and honorable Friend in the village, where I was 
 made kindly welcome, and where I had great freedom 
 of conversation. 
 
 "Being now satisfied, beyond my expectation, con- 
 cerning the people of God, in whom the Lord had 
 begun, and in a good measure carried on, a great work 
 and reformation in the earth, I determined to lay 
 aside every business and thing which might hinder 
 or veil in me the enjoyment of the presence of the 
 
THOMAS STORY. 
 
 33 
 
 Lord, whether among his people or alone, or obstruct 
 any service whereunto I was or might be called by 
 him, — especially things of an entangling or confining 
 nature; not regarding what the world might say, or 
 what name they might impose upon me.' 7 
 
 Being thus, as he informs us, at last satisfied that 
 he had found a people in whom the Lord had begun 
 a good work, he was ready to unite with them fully 
 as a religious body. And now he determined to lay 
 aside every thing, whether of a business nature or 
 otherwise, which could in any way obstruct or inter- 
 fere with whatever duties or labors he might be called 
 to by divine grace. His steadfastness in this deter- 
 mination, and his willingness to sacrifice every earthly 
 prospect for the Truth's sake, were soon after most 
 severely tested. Sitting one evening at his father's 
 house, solitary and silent, and under deep exercise 
 of mind, from a feeling of some approaching trial, he 
 was called upon by an acquaintance, who came to 
 consult him on some business in which he had for- 
 merly been employed in the capacity of a lawyer. 
 This person informed him that on the ensuing day 
 he had a lawsuit to come on in regard to certain 
 houses in the town of Penrith, which constituted 
 nearly all the property he possessed in the world ; 
 that one of the witnesses to his deeds of conveyance 
 being dead, and the other out of the country, without 
 the testimony of the third and only witness he would 
 in all probability be defrauded of nearly the whole of 
 his estate. This third witness was Thomas Story; 
 
34 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 and here was the trial of his faith. At that time 
 little indulgence was extended to tender consciences; 
 and all testimony in the courts of justice, to be valid, 
 must be delivered under oath j and to take an oath 
 our friend believed was to violate an express command 
 of Christ. Here, then, was a most embarrassing posi- 
 tion. On the one hand, obedience to the divine will, 
 and the reward of an approving conscience ; on the 
 other, the painful necessity of great loss to one whom 
 he highly esteemed, and whom he knew to be entirely 
 in the right in the matter, and whose case was really a 
 very hard one. In refusing to swear, also, he must give 
 up all hope of further employment or advancement in 
 the profession to which he had devoted so much labor 
 and study, and by which he expected to support him- 
 self in the world ; and not only this, but he must 
 become the scorn of some, aud the object of censure 
 to others, who really wished to be his friends. The 
 struggle was long and hard within him • for he had 
 not only to contend against the promptings of self- 
 interest, but the warmest sympathies of a kind heart 
 were deeply enlisted for one who, by his refusal to 
 comply with an almost universal custom, was likely 
 to become the victim of great injustice. Faith and 
 conscience, however, were at last victorious. He was 
 constrained to persist in his refusal to swear. His 
 former friend became at once a bitter enemy, and at 
 last, getting into a violent passion, began to curse him 
 for a fool and a Quaker, and fiually left him, threat- 
 ening to subject him to the severest penalties the law 
 
THOMAS STORY. 
 
 35 
 
 could inflict ; and these were severe enough in those 
 times. Having thus remained steadfast in his prin- 
 ciples, and obedient to the guiding of the Truth, he was 
 rewarded with great peace of mind and resignation to 
 whatever might befall him j and the next day, going 
 to the court, he was met with great friendship and 
 affection by his adversary of the day before, with the 
 welcome intelligence that the suit had been decided 
 in his favor and all things settled to his satisfaction. 
 Thus was light brought forth out of thick darkness, 
 and crooked things were made straight. How little, 
 in these enlightened days of toleration and liberty of 
 conscience, do we realize the privileges we enjoy, and 
 how dearly they were purchased for us by those very 
 men who, in their day and generation, were lcokeeT 
 upon as madmen and fanatics ! Nearly one hundred 
 years of patient suffering, under every form of perse- 
 cution, were necessary to demonstrate to the world 
 and its rulers many simple truths which are now not 
 even questioned, and, among others, the fact that 
 some men could speak truth on all occasions, without 
 calling their Maker to witness, in opposition to "his 
 express commaud. Powerful indeed against oppres- 
 sion and injustice was that unresisting but inflexible 
 steadfastness which so eminently characterized the 
 early Friends in all affairs of conscience. They would 
 not swear; they would not fight; they ever refused to 
 pay tithes to support a priesthood which they could 
 not recognise as authorized under a Christian dispen- 
 sation ; and though the whipping-post, the stocks, the 
 
3>3 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 jail, and the gallows were largely employed to compel 
 them into compliance, yet we have no single instance 
 of the surrender of principle, either from the fear of 
 punishment or the hope of reward. Would that a 
 greater portion of the same sublime faith, and the 
 same untiring zeal in the cause of truth, could be 
 found among their descendants in this day of luke- 
 warmness, ease, and worldly prosperity ! But, to resume 
 our account of Thomas Story's trials in this public pro- 
 fession of his religious principles, we find him soon 
 attacked on all sides by his former acquaintance, some 
 ridiculing what they thought his folly, and others of 
 his real well-wishers endeavoring to draw him into 
 lively society, in order to dispel the gravity of de- 
 meanor which they mistook for an evidence of some 
 disease of mind that had come upon him. Besides, 
 not long after the occurrence just related, feeling that 
 he could no longer look to the profession of the law 
 as a means of living, he determined to decline it; and 
 once, being consulted, in his father's presence, by some 
 persons wishing to employ his legal services, he refused 
 to undertake their business altogether. 
 
 This gave his father great offence, knowing that 
 his son had then no other means of living, and fear- 
 ing that he should become dependent upon him for 
 support. Afterward, however, hearing a false state- 
 ment that many ministers of the society of Friends 
 had received large sums of money for preaching, he 
 began to hope that his son was likely to earn his living 
 among them in that way. "But," says Thomas, 
 
THOMAS S T 0 R Y. 
 
 37 
 
 " as I was silent for some years after, it afforded no 
 great hopes in that way." 
 
 His father on one occasion moving a discussion 
 with him on the subject of tithes, his reply to the 
 arguments offered is thus given in his own words : — 
 
 "At another time my father had a mind to discourse 
 me on that subject; and, after he had moved it, I 
 desired leave to ask him a question before I entered 
 the dispute with him. He granted it; and then I 
 asked him, if it were not for his reputation among 
 men, and the law of the land, would he himself pay- 
 any tithe. Upon this he was silent a little, and then 
 replied, with an oath, that if it were not for the laws 
 he would pay no more tithe than myself. 1 Then,' said 
 I, ' there is no need of any further dispute and it 
 ended thus; for he never offered any argument 
 about it." 
 
 Hitherto Thomas Story had only been among Friends 
 in his own neighborhood ; but, being desirous of see- 
 ing something of them abroad, he left his father's 
 house, on a religious visit for the first time, in com- 
 pany with an able and powerful minister, Andrew 
 Taylor. This was in the latter part of the year 1691. 
 They travelled through the North of England, and 
 into Scotland, visiting various meetings on the way. 
 At Edinburgh they met with a friend, Thomas Rudd, 
 who was preaching through the streets of that city; 
 and, joining company with him, they were all arrested 
 and taken before a magistrate, when, after examina- 
 tion, Thomas Rudd was imprisoned as a disturber of 
 
38 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 the peace j and, though Thomas Story and his friend 
 were discharged from custody, they obtained admis- 
 sion to the prison, and remained there until next day, 
 when, at their intercession, Thomas Rudd was released, 
 with orders to leave the city. But no sooner had he got 
 again into the street than he commenced preaching 
 as before, crying, "Woe to the sandy foundation L" but 
 was no further molested at that time. 
 
 Passing over numerous incidents of this journey, 
 which we cannot now particularize, we come to a dis- 
 cussion by Thomas Story and a certain William Fal- 
 coner, one of the Episcopal clergymen who, by the 
 recent establishment of the Presbyterian Church of 
 Scotland, had been deprived of his benefice. 
 
 As the views of the society of Friends on the sub- 
 ject of a true gospel ministry are most ably and 
 effectively advocated in the remarks of Thomas Story 
 on that occasion, we would recommend them to the 
 attention of any who may be in doubt upon that 
 subject : — 
 
 "Then I began to speak concerning the many divi- 
 sions in the pretended Christian world, — the Papacy, 
 the Prelacy, and the Presbytery, with their several 
 subdivisions and confusions, which, being departed 
 from the Spirit of Christ, the Prince of Peace, into 
 the spirit of envy and persecution, were warring and 
 destroying each other, contrary both to the nature 
 and end of that religion they profess, which is love. 
 I was answered that the bishop of Rome, under pre- 
 tence of being the successor of Peter, and, as such, 
 
THOMAS STORY. 
 
 39 
 
 infallible, hath usurped a dictatorship over the Chris- 
 tian world in matters of religion, and imposed a mul- 
 titude of antichristian errors, by unreasonable force, 
 upon mankind. But God having committed his 
 whole will unto writing in the Holy Scriptures, and 
 in the course of his providence preserved them unto 
 us, we have our whole duty declared therein, as our 
 rule and guide in matters of religion ; so that we are 
 not to expect the manifestations of the Spirit as in 
 times past, that dispensation being now ceased. 
 
 "I replied that what he said of the bishop of Rome 
 was true, and that the Scriptures are the most excel- 
 lent books extant, which were given, from time to 
 time, by the Word of the Lord, which is the Spirit 
 of Christ. But men may read and speak the truths 
 contained in the Scriptures, one to another, and the 
 readers and speakers remain still ignorant of the 
 Word of the Lord, and of things themselves intended 
 to be signified by the words ; and not being sent of 
 God, as the Scriptures send no man, cannot profit the 
 hearers, but are themselves transgressors in so doing, 
 unless they were sent by the influence, power, and 
 virtue of the same Word that did dictate the matter 
 of the Scriptures unto the holy penmen thereof, as 
 appears by the 23d chapter of the prophecy of Jere- 
 miah ; and then I called for a Bible and read : — \ The 
 prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream; and 
 he that hath my word, let him speak my word faith- 
 fully : what is the chaff to the wheat, baith the Lord? 
 Is not my word like a fire, saith the Lord, and like 
 
40 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces? There- 
 fore, behold, I am against the prophets, saith the 
 Lord, that steal my words, every one from his neigh- 
 bor. Behold, I am against the prophets, saith the 
 Lord, that use their tongues, and say, He saith : yet 
 I sent them not, nor commanded them : therefore 
 they shall riot profit this people at all, saith the 
 Lord/ So that it is contrary to the declared mind 
 of God that any should use his words to others as his 
 ministers, who are not sent by himself so to do; for, 
 though they have been his words unto others, those 
 who use them without his command are charged by 
 him as thieves ; especially such as make merchandise 
 of them to the people. 
 
 " As to the dispensation of the Spirit being now 
 ceased, I am sorry to hear it is so ; for I can show 
 thee to whom it is so ceased, but not to the church 
 of Christ. Then I turned to the third chapter of the 
 prophecy of Micah, and read : — ' Hear, I pray you, 0 
 heads of Jacob, and ye princes of the house of Israel : 
 is it not for you to know judgment ? Who hate the 
 good and love the evil; who pluck off their skin from 
 off them, and their flesh from off their bones ; who 
 also eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin 
 from off them 5 and they break their bones, and chop 
 them in pieces for the pot, and as flesh within the 
 caldron. Then shall they cry unto the Lord, but he 
 will not hear them ■ he will even hide his face from 
 them at that time, as they have behaved themselves 
 ill in their doings/ 
 
THOMAS STOR Y. 
 
 41 
 
 " Here it appears that, for the ignorance, cruelty, and 
 injustice of the princes or heads of the people, the 
 Lord would not hear or regard them. Again, in the 
 9th verse, the Lord resumes his charge against the 
 great men in that day: — 1 They abhorred judgment, 
 and perverted all equity : they built up Ziou with 
 blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity: the heads of 
 that people judged for reward, their priests taught 
 for hire, and their prophets divined for money; yet 
 they pretended to lean upon the Lord, and say, Is 
 not the Lord among us ? No evil can come upon us.' 
 But the Lord was not to be mocked by such : his just 
 judgments were denounced against them: — 'There- 
 fore shall Zion, for your sakes, be ploughed as a held, 
 and Jerusalem shall become heaps; and the mountain 
 of the house, as the high places of the forest.' This 
 was fulfilled upon them, and remains over them, as a 
 monument of the justice of God, unto this day. The 
 charge of the Lord, and his judgments against the 
 prophets, I left to the last : — 1 They made the people 
 err; they bit with their teeth, and [yet] cried peace; 
 and he that put not into their mouths, they even 
 prepared war against him : therefore night shall be 
 unto you, that ye shall not have a vision ; and it shall 
 be dark unto you, that ye shall not divine ; and the 
 sun shall go down over the prophets, and the day 
 shall be dark over them. Then shall the seers be 
 ashamed, 'and the diviners confounded; yea, they 
 shall all cover their lips, for there is no answer of 
 God.' 
 
 4* 
 
42 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 "Now, as to these Scriptures, said I, like sin, like 
 judgment. All these three divisions of the pretended 
 Christian church, falling into the sins of the old 
 heathens, are become hateful, and hating one another, 
 and ; through that hatred, have persecuted and de- 
 stroyed each other when and wherever they have had 
 power. And all these, in their turns, having deceived 
 and subjected the temporal powers, have persecuted 
 and destroyed the church of Christ among them. 
 'They have hated the good, and loved the evil/ 
 They have exercised such cruelties upon the innocent 
 and just as are here figuratively termed plucking off 
 their skin and their flesh, and the breaking of their 
 bones, and the like. The priests of every form have 
 fleeced the people and the church of Christ, which 
 they have not fed ; they have made laws by their own. 
 power against them, and thereby made war against 
 such as would not gratify their covetousness; they 
 have worried them as with their teeth, and yet cried 
 up the peace of the gospel in words; they have built 
 and propagated their several sects and parties with 
 the blood of others and of the saints of God, and 
 have filled their sanctuaries with evil-doing and fraud. 
 Their heads, who lord over them, have exercised their 
 offices for gain and pay, their priests teach for hire, 
 their prophets divine for money; yet they pretend 
 the Lord is with them in their various and opposite 
 ways, and that no evil can come upon them. And 
 yet, though the day of the gospel of Christ be dawned 
 upon his church, and the Sun of Righteousness arisen 
 
T HOMAS S T 0 R Y. 
 
 4o 
 
 and shining in her, yet the night of apostasy and 
 mist of thick darkness and ignorance is over these. 
 They have no vision of God; they cannot divine; the 
 sun is set unto them, and the day is dark over them. 
 For the light thereof they despise and hate, because 
 they are evil-doers, and to them there is no answer 
 of God. 
 
 " But the church of Christ here speaketh another 
 language : she bears another, a true testimony to the 
 true God. 'But truly I am full of power, by the 
 Spirit of the Lord, and of judgment, and of might, to 
 declare unto Jacob his transgressions, and unto Israel 
 his sin.' Here it is apparent from whom the Spirit 
 of the Lord is departed, and to whom he is not now 
 revealed, and in whom he does not reside; that is, 
 Mystery-Babylon, with all her divisions, subdivisions, 
 and members, everywhere and under whatsoever 
 name; but God is with his people still, as in former 
 times, according to the promise of his Son : — ' If a 
 man. love me, he will keep my words ; and my Father 
 will love him, and we will come unto him and make 
 our abode with him.'" 
 
 This journey was a long one, our friend only 
 reaching home after an absence of six months, during 
 which time he had traversed a large portion of both 
 England and Scotland, but not appearing on any 
 occasion as a minister. 
 
 Returning again to his father's house, he did not 
 long remain there; but, feeling that he could no 
 longer bear to be dependent upon his father, nor live 
 
44 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 happily with him under the feeling of estrangement 
 which the former had for a long time manifested, he 
 now determined to bid farewell to his home, and go 
 forth, he knew not whither, yet in full faith that his 
 Divine Master would never forsake those who put 
 their trust in him. When this determination was 
 made known to his father, a most touching interview 
 took place between parent and child, of which he has 
 left us the following account: — 
 
 " After this, my uneasiness in my father's house 
 increasing, I took an occasion one morning to remind 
 him of the change of his countenance and behavior 
 toward me, and of the many hints he had thought 
 fit to give concerning my way of living in the world, 
 as if I were likely to be chargeable to him, in some 
 other way than by the practice of the law, into which 
 I had been initiated, — having altogether declined it, 
 as noted before in this relation. 
 
 "I told him that he could not charge me with any 
 act of disobedience to him from my childhood; nor 
 did he, or my mother, or any schoolmaster, ever cor- 
 rect me with the rod, or had any cause, or with the 
 neglect of any duty, save now, at last, my embracing 
 the truth of G-od, as my only way to salvation, — in 
 which case he had no right to command or hinder, 
 but rather to consider his own ways and state, and 
 how far they were just and pleasing in the sight of 
 God, to whom I must answer for myself, where he 
 could not for me ; and then added that I intended 
 
THOMAS STORY. 
 
 45 
 
 to leave his house in a short time and make him easy 
 on that account. 
 
 "This touched my dear father so near that he could 
 not bear it, but wept abundantly, confessing that I 
 ever had been a dutiful child to him, and had never 
 disobliged him, save in that thing only; nor did he 
 grudge any thing in his power to do for me j but, as 
 he had brought me up to the law, he thought it might 
 have been a way of living in the world both plentiful 
 and reputable, but could not now see auy reasonable 
 means of a competent subsistence with that reputa- 
 tion which my circumstances required. However, he 
 made me this proposal, as the best he could then 
 think of, viz. : That I should manage his estate to the 
 best advantage I could, and take all the incomes to 
 myself, save a reputable subsistence to himself and 
 my mother-in-law, his wife. 
 
 "To this I returned him my dutiful acknowledg- 
 ment, but told him it was now too late. I was fixed in 
 another resolution, under a view of a different nature, 
 and could not subject myself to such a confinement 
 if he would, on such terms, give me his whole estate 
 forever, but withal assured him that I did not leave 
 him under any discontent or resentment of any beha- 
 vior he had used toward me, which he had a right 
 to do, according to his views and meaning; but that 
 I had an inducement for my departure which 
 probably he could not rightly apprehend or believe 
 if I should declare it, — which was no other than more 
 perfect liberty to serve the Lord and his people in 
 
46 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 the way of the calling of God, which was gradually 
 increasing at that time upon me ; and I was now 
 grown a little stronger in the ministry, and more 
 experienced in the exercise of the gift of God 
 therein/' 
 
 Soon after this interview he took leave of his 
 family, and started, in company with another friend, 
 for London, with the intention of taking several meet- 
 ings of Friends on their way. Arriving in that city, 
 he found himself under the necessity of seeking 
 some employment, as he was without any means 
 except the horse on which he had ridden. His first 
 step was to part with the horse, thus supplying 
 immediate necessities. Friends in the city being 
 aware of his desire to find occupation there, several 
 persons, and William Penn in particular, interested 
 themselves to find employment for him in the busi- 
 ness of conveyancing, and with such success that in 
 a short time he found himself fully employed and in 
 a comfortable way of living ; thus experiencing, in 
 his own case, the verification of the Scripture pro- 
 mise : — "Seek first the kingdom of God and his 
 righteousness, and all other things needful shall be 
 added thereunto." 
 
 He remained in London, diligently attending to 
 meetings and to his business, each in their proper 
 time and place, uutil the year 1696. By this time, 
 having often appeared in the ministry, he had grown 
 into great esteem in that capacity. He now felt 
 called to make a religious journey to the North of 
 
THOMAS STORY. 
 
 47 
 
 England and Scotland, and while on the way, being 
 at the town of Waterford, he visited the Countess of 
 Carlisle and was received with great respect. The 
 countess asked him a variety of questions on the 
 views of his society, as regarded the sacraments, 
 womeu's preaching, &c, to which he returned full 
 answers, and such as were satisfactory. His defence 
 of women's preaching from Scripture authority, and 
 his explanation of Paul's doctrine on that subject, 
 may attract the attention of inquirers ; and we give it 
 in his own words : — 
 
 " As to women's preaching, it ought to be impar- 
 tially observed that the difference of sexes consists 
 not in any diversity of faculties in the human soul, 
 the intellectual powers being alike common to male 
 and female, and the nature of the mind the same in 
 both, and consequently susceptible of the like and 
 same impressions and impulses. And, accordingly, 
 the xVlmighty, pointing at the dispensation of the 
 gospel by Joel the prophet, saith, ' I will pour out my 
 Spirit upon all flesh ; and your sons and your daugh- 
 ters shall prophesy.' Again, 'Upon the servants and 
 upon the handmaids, in those days, will I pour out 
 my Spirit.' By the word prop liesy is understood, by 
 all interpreters, preaching the gospel; and this pro- 
 phecy took place in the church of Christ, at the 
 coming of the Holy Ghost, or Christ in Spirit, at 
 Jerusalem, at the time of Pentecost, — where, if no 
 woman spake, though we have no express account 
 that any did, the Apostle Peter did not apply that text 
 
48 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR O F 
 
 properly and without exception ; which we are not to 
 suppose. 
 
 " Though the Apostle Paul takes some exceptions, 
 and that with sharpness, against some women as to 
 that exercise in the church, yet not against all ; for 
 himself declares how women using that exercise 
 ought to be circumstanced, and recommends Phebe 
 as a minister of the church which was at Cenchrea; 
 and Philip had four daughters, all preachers; and 
 Priscilla, as well as Aquilla, her husband, was a 
 preacher in the days of the apostles ; and she, as well 
 as he, instructed Apollos further in the way of Christ, 
 though he had been a preacher before. I conclude, 
 therefore, with truth, that women both may and 
 ought to preach, under the gospel dispensation, when 
 the Spirit of the Lord is upon them, and they there- 
 unto called and qualified thereby; and many such 
 we have now among us, very acceptable in their 
 ministry. So that we know by experience that they 
 are sent of God, according to the various degrees of 
 their gifts, as well as men, and receive them accord- 
 ingly in the Lord/' 
 
 Leaving Waterford, he continued his journey north- 
 ward, attending various meetings and having good 
 service at most of them. Among other incidents of 
 this journey was a visit to the widow of the celebrated 
 Robert Barclay of Urie, in whose family a very satisfac- 
 tory meeting was held. Arriving in Edinburgh, he was 
 made aware of an extremely bitter feeling against the 
 society of Friends on the part of the Scottish Pres- 
 
THOMAS S T 0 R Y. 
 
 40 
 
 byterian Church, their General Assembly having 
 issued a decree of excommunication against all persons 
 professing Friends' principles, in which they were 
 styled blasphemous and possessed of the devil, and 
 at the same time forbidding all members of the 
 Scotch Church to hold any kind of intercourse with, 
 or even to buy from or sell to, the Quakers. 
 
 This doctrine from those in authority stirred up 
 the populace to the perpetration of various cruel and 
 brutal outrages against the Friends, — such as pelting 
 them with dirt and stones, and crying out, even before 
 the magistrates, "Stone those Quakers to death; for 
 the ministers have excommunicated them." 
 
 This bitter persecuting spirit among the Presby- 
 terians — a people who, but a few years before, had 
 been hunted down like wild beasts by the fierce sol- 
 diers of the Stuarts, under the command of their 
 bloody and relentless persecutor, James Grahame of 
 Claverhouse — would seem difficult of explanation. 
 Yet in New England, not long before, we have evi- 
 dences of the same vindictive intolerance among their 
 co-religionists, who had but lately found an asylum 
 from persecution at home in the wild forests of the 
 New World. At the period of Thomas Story's visit, 
 however, whatever may have been their disposition, 
 they were kept from any overt act of outrage by fear 
 of the royal authority, which since the accession of 
 the Prince of Orange was uniformly exerted in favor 
 of general toleration. 
 
 We shall not here follow our friend through all 
 
50 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 the details of his labor of love among this people, who 
 were so little in a condition to profit by them. 
 
 On his return again to London he found a letter 
 directed to him from an unknown hand, which in- 
 formed him that the writer of it had been very favor- 
 ably impressed by the perusal of a letter of his to 
 another person, and that though before that time he 
 had been strongly prejudiced against Friends, as an 
 unchristian sect, he (the anonymous writer) was now 
 convinced that among the people called by the name 
 of Quakers there might be many persons who really 
 feared God. With these premises, the writer goes 
 on to offer a number of propositions for Thomas 
 Story's consideration. Among the most prominent 
 of these are the following, which we give here, and 
 also the replies to and explanations of them, which 
 Thomas Story gave to each of them in detail. 
 
 1st. That Christ took upon him our nature, that 
 he might know how to pity our infirmities, and from 
 thence knew what need we had of strengthening 
 ordinances, and in love commanded us to commemo- 
 rate his death till he came, &c. 
 
 2d. That Christ was baptized of John, and sent 
 forth his disciples to preach to and baptize all nations. 
 
 3d. Of a sinless perfection in this life, and what 
 reason we have for a belief that it is possible to 
 arrive at it. 
 
 " To the 1st. The plain sense of this is, that the 
 great end of Christ's taking upon him our nature is 
 that he might thereby know how to pity our infirmi- 
 
T H 0 M A S STO R Y. 
 
 51 
 
 ties ; and, from a knowledge thereof so obtained, was 
 moved with so great compassion as to give us the 
 sacraments, as the great fruits of his love and tender- 
 ness, till he should come again at the end of the 
 world. 
 
 " This is a great perversion of the end of his 
 coming, and highly derogates from the glory of it ; 
 insinuating that he was not sensible of our infirmi- 
 ties, nor could pity us therein, till he acquired that 
 knowledge by experience ; reflecting upon his omni- 
 science as God. For he came that we might have 
 life, — not only shadows of it, — and that we might have 
 it more abundantly ■ he came the second time in that 
 generation, according to his promise, to save his 
 people from their sins, and not in them, — to save them 
 from their pollutions and corruptions, by the washing 
 of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost, the 
 spirit of judgment and of burning, that eternally 
 burns, as an oven, against all corruption, and can 
 never be reconciled to sin ; and not to establish a 
 shadow only of cleansiug. He came to finish trans 
 gression, to put an end to sin, and to bring everlasting 
 righteousuess into the soul of man, where it was 
 wanted ; and not some shadow of it only. 
 
 " For this end likewise was the Son of God made 
 manifest, that he might destroy the works of the 
 devil, which is sin in the hearts of mankind ; and not 
 to give some signs of it only. He came to give his 
 life, the quickening spirit, the true bread which comes 
 down from heaven, to revive and preserve dead lost 
 
52 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 man j and not only, as thou imagines, to give them 
 these poor pretended ordinances, in which there is no 
 strength to strengthen them. The Lord himself 
 being with his people always, according to his pro- 
 mise, and will be, in his own baptism of the Holy 
 Grhost and fire, to the end of the world, they need 
 not any outward thing to put them in mind of him. 
 And sprinkling of children, being an antichristian 
 forgery, is not so much as a pertinent shadow of the 
 one true baptism. 
 
 "But if thou wilt apply thine heart to the Lord 
 in sincerity and truth, and take up his cross daily to 
 thy own will and natural desires, and embrace those 
 things he makes manifest to thee to be thy duty to 
 him and to mankind, he will make thee wiser than 
 those who have thus taught and deceived thee ; for 
 great is his compassion and tender regard, as I find 
 by his grace made known in my heart, toward thee 
 at this time. 
 
 u That the Lord Christ took a body of the same 
 nature and kind as ours, and was like us in all things, 
 sin excepted, is true. But whether he be come in us, 
 is the question. Whether that day be come in and 
 unto us, wherein we have known 'that he is in the 
 Father, and the Father in him, and he in us.' Or 
 that we be yet so clouded, shadowed, and benighted, 
 by the god and spirit of this world, as not yet to have 
 seen the Lord Jesus in and for ourselves. If not, 
 we are reprobates, falsely covered with a vain profes- 
 sion of the holy name of Him we do not know. For 
 
T II O M A S B TO B Y. 
 
 53 
 
 every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come 
 in the flesh, the same is of God j out every spirit 
 that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the 
 flesh, the same is antichrist. 
 
 "Now, every antichristian spirit in the world pro- 
 fessing Christianity will confess in words that Christ 
 is come in that blessed, prepared body born of the 
 Virgin Mary ; yet none can make this true confession 
 of Christ's being come in the flesh but such only in 
 whom the Spirit of Christ is revealed, who have put 
 on Christ, and are put on of him, and are become 
 members of him, by his life that dwells in them, as 
 bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh; no more 
 than auy man can call Christ truly Lord but by the 
 Holy Ghost; though to call him our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, and our Saviour, in words, is a thing very 
 easily acquired, and common amongst most ungodly 
 professors, wallowing on still in all manner of sins 
 and wickedness, and not saved by him. Consider 
 these things fully ; and the Lord so shine in upon 
 thy heart in love, and reveal himself in thee, that 
 thou mayst be able to confess him before all thy 
 acquaintance and the world. 
 
 " Again: as to those supposed ordinances of bread 
 and wine, and being sprinkled in the face with water 
 in one's infancy, if there was any thing to boast of in 
 these, I also might glory, having formerly had the 
 administration of both, and the former with great 
 preparation and fear, but know nothing of the latter 
 but by tradition only, being too young then to know 
 5* 
 
54 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 or remember any thing of it, nor do, or ever did, find 
 any effect it had towards salvation. 
 
 "In respect to the first, it is true there was some- 
 thing like a commandment ; for it being the passover 
 of the Jews, and to be ended in Christ, the substance, 
 he said, 'This do, as often as ye do it, in remem- 
 brance of me;' not simply, This do in remembrance 
 of me, but, This do, as often as ye do it, in remem- 
 brance of me. On which the Apostle Paul, in his 
 first Epistle to the Corinthians, makes this observa- 
 tion : — t That as often as they ate that bread and drank 
 that cup, they showed forth the Lo|#'s death till he 
 came.' This shows that it was determinable upon a 
 certain contingency, or within a certain limitation of 
 time, viz. : till he came. And in that generation he 
 came the second time, without sin unto salvation, in 
 those who believed and obeyed. By which coming, 
 this and all other types, shadows, and figures of him 
 were put to an end, as to any real obligation from 
 that seeming commandment, or any other of a typical 
 kind. 
 
 "And yet, in condescension to some who had 
 believed in Christ, as to his outward coming, that he 
 is the Messiah and sent of Grod, and were yet weak, 
 and not come to the experience of his presence in 
 themselves, being yet in an intermediate state, some 
 eatings and drinkings — I do not say any now in use — 
 might be continued for a time, in some places; though 
 we read of none but Corinth, where they were then 
 in a very carnal state. But that practice did not 
 
THOMAS STORY. 
 
 55 
 
 make it necessary for ages then to come, especially 
 since antichrist hath erected his kingdom of darkness 
 under those shadows, and forged idols under the 
 cover of them, and thereby deceived the nations, 
 though not the elect, who cannot be deceived. Yet 
 that practice in those days, after the spiritual coming 
 of the Lord Jesus Christ, adds no mere authority for 
 the continuance or perpetuity of it than the practice 
 of circumcision, vows, purifications, and the like 
 ceremonies and types under the law of Moses, made 
 these necessary, after his coming both in the flesh 
 and spirit \ some of which were not only continued, 
 for the reasons aforesaid, after the revelation of the 
 Spirit of Christ, the Holy Ghost, in them in that age, 
 but some of them are continued, especially in the 
 church and kingdom of antichrist, and among pro- 
 fessors of Christianity, unto this day, as still being 
 needful, in their judgment, 
 
 " Breaking bread and drinking wine was a Jewish 
 rite, begun in the time of the captivity at Babylon, 
 and continued till the coming of Christ, and used at 
 the passover and eating of the paschal lamb, — which 
 was a type of Christ as the Lamb of God, the true 
 vine and wine of the kingdom, and the antitype of 
 that figure, who made the application of it imme- 
 diately to himself, as being the real substance. And 
 though he was at that time come, and present with 
 them as born of the Virgin Mary, and the Messiah 
 outwardly, according to the prophets, yet he was then 
 shortly to come, or be revealed, according to the pro- 
 
5G 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 phecy of Malachi, the last of the prophets, and of 
 John the Baptist, who prophesied of a divine comiug 
 and manifestation of the same Christ and Saviour, 
 that is to say, as the Mediator and Messenger of the 
 new and second covenant of light and life; and he is 
 also that covenant, like a refiner's fire and fuller's 
 soap, to sit in the hearts of mankind as a refiner and 
 purifier of silver ; to make men pure, and purer than 
 fine gold, seven times tried in the fire ; to gather the 
 weighty and solid wheat into the garner of God, to 
 be reserved there for his use, and of which is made 
 the one bread ; but to burn up the chaff of pollutions 
 with fire unquenchable, by Him who is that fire, the 
 Word of God, who baptizeth with the Holy Ghost, as 
 John did with water, and with that divine and holy 
 fire. 
 
 '"As often as ye eat this bread and drink this 
 cup, ye show forth the Lord's death till he come/ 
 They, therefore, who are at this day exercising them- 
 selves in the imitations of these things, with their 
 own additions, diminutions, and alterations thereof, 
 are only showing forth his death until now; whereby 
 they are bearing witness against themselves, that they 
 are not yet come to know him as the resurrection and 
 life, by his manifestation in them ; that he is not yet 
 revealed in them; that they are yet dead unto the 
 sense of the life of the Word of God, and alienated 
 therefrom, through the ignorance that is in them. 
 Christ is yet crucified in and unto them ; being con- 
 tented with a hearsay of him, pretending to serve 
 
THOMAS STORY. 
 
 57 
 
 him in eating, drinking, touching, tasting, and hand- 
 ling; in shows, in imperfect imitations of some out- 
 ward and typical shadows, once in use in their proper 
 dispensations of time, place, and people j and yet 
 deny or neglect the great everlasting command and 
 ordinance of love. 'Love one another; love your 
 enemies j do good to them that hate you; be perfect: 
 by this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, 
 if ye love one another.' Of these they are willingly 
 ignorant. And how little Christendom, falsely so 
 called, hath been in the practice of these things, the 
 heathen world has beheld and has stumbled at. 
 How little she is in the practice of them still, let her 
 present circumstances demonstrate to all who have 
 eyes to see the bloodshed and uncharity, and ears to 
 hear the cries of the poor and oppressed, and hearts 
 to lament the misery and judgments now on foot and 
 swiftly advancing upon all false pretenders, who are 
 not only to be more and more vexed by the destroying 
 hands one of another, but unless they speedily repent 
 and turn unto him, the divine substance of all types 
 and shadows, even to that true light which enlighten- 
 eth every man that cometh into the world, they must 
 surely taste of the eternal judgment of the Son of 
 God, the great Judge of the living and of the dead, 
 who is now hastening upon all the kindreds of the 
 earth. 
 
 "'I am the bread of life/ said the Lord Jesus 
 Christ, — 'the living bread which came down from 
 heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live 
 
58 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 forever. And the bread that I will give is my flesh, 
 which I will give for the life of the world. Except 
 ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his 
 blood, ye have no life in you. My flesh is meat 
 indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that 
 eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in 
 me, and I in him.' Then said the hearers, ' How can 
 this man give us his flesh to eat ?' Many therefore 
 of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, 
 'This is a hard saying : who can hear it?' And, to 
 explain his sayings, he added, 'It is the Spirit that 
 quickeneth : the flesh profiteth nothing : the words 
 that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are 
 life/ 
 
 "Yet from that time many of his disciples went 
 back and walked no more with him. Even the 
 twelve apostles themselves seem to have been ready 
 to stagger at his doctrine, so far above the natural 
 capacity of mankind, and of the hearers at that time, 
 as appears by his question to them in private : — ' Will 
 ye also go away?' when Peter, recounting their 
 experience, replied, 'Lord, to whom shall we go? 
 thou hast the words of eternal life.' As it is else- 
 where written, 'It is given unto you to know the 
 mysteries of the kingdom of heaven ; but to them it 
 is not given.' Even so it is at this day. It is given 
 unto those who are awakened out of sleep, to walk in 
 the light, and in the day of God, where there is no 
 night or shadow, and to be fed with this living bread 
 and everlasting substance; but those who are asleep, 
 
THOMAS B TO R Y. 
 
 59 
 
 and dreaming, as ia the night, that they are eating 
 and drinking and are satisfied, when they awake in 
 the morning shall be an-hungered. And then shall 
 they know that they have been deluded with an 
 empty dream, and that real bread is wanting unto 
 them, and the true wine of the kingdom they have 
 not tasted. 
 
 u ' It is the Spirit that quickeneth : the flesh profit- 
 eth nothing.' And, notwithstanding any use of any 
 shadows or signs visible, in the church of Christ, after 
 his descending upon them in spirit, we find the true 
 supper and divine substance explained, and the way 
 to obtain it directed to, by the Spirit of Christ, after 
 his glorification in heaven ; and of which we are at 
 this day made partakers, through the infinite mercy 
 of the Father in him, without the use of any cere- 
 mony, sign, or shadow, or of any other means than 
 those of his own directing. That is to say, ' As many 
 as I love I rebuke and chasten : be zealous, therefore, 
 and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock : 
 if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will 
 come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with 
 me.' Here the love of God is the first movine cause, 
 and is seen in the rebukes and chastisements of his 
 Holy Spirit in the hearts of mankind ; and we ought 
 to show our zeal and love to him by a free and hearty 
 repentance, and forsaking of those things we are 
 reproved for. He will then stand at the door of such 
 a heart, and call more plainly and powerfully there, 
 and knock by the hammer of his holy Word, which 
 
60 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR Of 
 
 breaketh the rock in pieces; and whosoever shall 
 hear, believe, and obey this voice, and shall open his 
 heart and door and let in this divine guest, shall sit 
 with him at his heavenly table and eat of his holy 
 supper, the true bread which conies down, day by day, 
 from heaven, and shall drink of the new wine of his 
 kingdom, even now in this present world, where 
 their peace shall flow as a river, and their joy in him 
 and the Father as a mighty stream. They shall eat 
 of the hidden manna, and the fruit of the Tree of 
 Life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God, 
 and live with and in him who was dead, and died for 
 them,' and liveth for evermore. 
 
 " In all humility and honor to the sacred name of 
 the Lord, be it confessed, I am often made partaker 
 of this supper with many brethren and sisters, 
 children of one Father, without the use of these 
 means thou talkest of, and without any self-conceited- 
 ness, or blasphemous and vain apprehensions of our 
 own wisdom, or being wiser than he; for he is the 
 wisdom of God and the power of God, and is made 
 unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and re- 
 demption; and by him, the heavenly substance, we 
 are led, directed, and redeemed out of all shadows, 
 types, and figures, to serve God in newness of life, in 
 love to God and to all mankind. Which love is the 
 one great commandment, upon which depend all the 
 rest, and which he, the Lord Jesus, the great Dis- 
 penser of it in the hearts of his people, is come to 
 fulfil in us by his eternal power; and we are become, 
 
T II 0 M AS S TOR Y. 
 
 CI 
 
 and are more and more becomiug, the workmanship 
 of the Father in him, unto good works, such as please 
 him. 
 
 "Without this new aud living commandment, the 
 observation of shadows, though once lawful, or what 
 men may invent to themselves in imitation or addi- 
 tion thereto, are as surely an abomination to the 
 Lord at this day as the observation of things once 
 commanded unto Israel, and, in point of dispensation, 
 were then still in force, became as the cutting off a 
 dog's neck, and offering of swine's blood, because of 
 their nedectiu"; righteousness and greater matters 
 of the law. 
 
 " Every type or shadow once instituted remained 
 as an obligation, and in force, until Christ, who is the 
 antitype and substance of all types and shadows, 
 became that thing to man which the type did typify 
 or signify. As when Christ was offered upon the 
 cross, the Jewish offerings were ended; when he 
 became the High-Priest of the soul, the Jewish high- 
 priest's office was fully ended, kc. Even so the 
 paschal lamb, and the breaking bread and the drink- 
 ing wine at that feast, as part of it, were fully ended 
 when the true Paschal Lamb, upon whom the saints 
 aud saved of the Lord were to feed, was fully come, 
 so as actually and spiritually to become meat and 
 drink to their enlivened souls. And in like manner 
 also, so soon as the heavenly body of the Lord Jesus 
 became, experimentally, that bread of life which 
 came down from heaven, and his blood that new wine 
 6 
 
62 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 of the kingdom, unto the sanctified and redeemed in 
 that day, the breaking of bread outward, and drinking 
 wine, fully came to an end, as to any obligation that 
 was on any to retain the practice of it, any more than 
 washing the feet one of another, — also a Jewish rite, 
 and a thing more positively commanded, and with 
 great solemnity, and which, nevertheless, hath been 
 little in use in the church of Christ. And as said 
 the Apostle Paul, ( I speak as to wise men : judge ye 
 what I say : the cup of blessing which we bless, is it 
 not the communion of the blood of Christ? The 
 bread which we break, is it not the communion of 
 the body of Christ ? For we, being many, are one 
 bread, and one body ; for we are all partakers of that 
 one bread/ And, blessed be the name of the Lord, 
 so also is it now. 
 
 " Great hath been the apostasy of mankind from 
 the heavenly substance, and even from the shadow 
 also j and all has become unto them as one shadow, 
 as the dark night and shadow of the earth • and great 
 idolatry hath been committed by the professors of the 
 name of the Lord Jesus, therein and thereby. And 
 even at this day great is the apostasy from the true 
 substance, and superstition is committed and reigning 
 in the imitation of this shadow, whilst the living 
 substance is still neglected and decried. 
 
 "I sought the Lord in this ordinance, as thou, 
 mistaking, calls it, but found him not therein j but 
 in a day of deep distress and hour of bitter affliction, 
 when hell opened her mouth and eternal death stood 
 
T II DMAS STOR Y. 
 
 63 
 
 ready to devour, when terrors unspeakable laid hold 
 on my soul, amazed and suddenly arrested for a debt 
 I could not number or pay, and despair encompassed 
 me about, — then cried I unto the living Lord with 
 exceeding lamentation, from the depth of affliction, 
 and in true resignation to his holy will; and his mercy 
 sprang in as the dawning of the morning. 
 
 M The day dawning, the night retires; and the sub- 
 stance come, the shadow vanishes. My dear though 
 unknown friend, when the beloved of thy soul appears, 
 if the world, and the things and friendship and glory 
 of it, be not thy beloved, thou wilt not then mind his 
 picture, if it were his picture, nor mind his shadow, 
 though he had even said, 'Look upon this till I come/ 
 It is true thou wilt not then contemn his picture 
 when he is with thee : no more do I, but have a due 
 esteem for all he hath commanded, in their times, 
 dispensations, and ends. Nor do I lightly esteem 
 those who use that in imitation with a good intent 
 and sincere mind, but pity them that they are come 
 no nearer the kingdom, which, though at hand 
 seventeen hundred years ago, is not yet come unto 
 those who are set down contented under the shade of 
 night, and dreaming of things of which they have no' 
 kuowledge or enjoyment. 
 
 " Go into the sunshine, and turn thy face toward 
 the sun, and the shadow will be behind thee; but 
 turn thy back on the sun, and the shadow will be 
 before thee, and the more thou followest it, the 
 more it will fly thee, and the more thou goest after 
 
64 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 it, the farther from the sun. And this is the state 
 of apostatized Christendom at this day, and hath been 
 for many ages. 
 
 " The kingdom of heaven is within, and stands 
 not in eating and drinking, nor comes with outward 
 observation, but in righteousness and peace, and joy 
 in the Holy Ghost; to which the only true and 
 living God, through the inward revelation of his 
 eternal Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, bring thy precious 
 soul ! And that is the only thing that can truly 
 satisfy, where the soul is alive by the breath of life 
 from God, and hungry and thirsty indeed; though I 
 am willing thus to take a little pains for thy present 
 information. 
 
 " 2dly. And now as to baptism. To John the Bap- 
 tist, who was the immediate forerunner of Christ, 
 came the word of God in the wilderness, commanding 
 him to preach repentance to the Jews, to whom alone 
 he was sent to proclaim the kingdom of heaven to be 
 then at hand, and to baptize the people in water, 
 directing them to believe in him who was to come 
 after him, who was Christ the Lord, then among 
 them, though not known at that time to be the 
 Messiah, either by John himself or any other. But 
 John declared that he baptized with water, and that 
 after him was to come one more worthy and powerful 
 than he, who should baptize them with the Holy 
 Spirit and fire, and that John must decrease, and 
 Christ increase. 
 
 " When, the Lord Jesus Christ did appear, he like- 
 
THOMAS STORY. 
 
 65 
 
 wise preached repentance, as also did his disciples, 
 who baptized with the same water-baptism that John 
 did, and at the same time, but not in the name of 
 one to come, testifying that Jesus is the Messiah sent 
 of God unto Israel. The disciples of Christ being 
 thus in the practice of water-baptism cotemporary 
 with Johu, and the Lord Christ present with them, 
 they continued in that practice till after his resurrec- 
 tion ; and then he declared and established his own 
 proper baptism, so foretold by John as aforesaid, say- 
 ing, ' Repentance and remission of sins must be 
 preached in his name unto all nations, beginning at 
 Jerusalem.' 'And ye shall be witnesses unto me/ said 
 he, 'in Jerusalem, in Samaria, in all the countries 
 round about, and to the uttermost parts of the earth. 
 All power in heaven and in earth is given unto me : 
 go ye, therefore, teach all nations, baptizing them into 
 the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, 
 teaching them all things whatsoever I have com- 
 manded you ; and lo, I am with you always, even unto 
 the end of the world.' And, to explain what he had 
 thus said, he further added, ' Go into all the earth, 
 and preach the gospel unto every creature. He that 
 believeth and is baptized shall be saved ; but he 
 that believeth not shall be damned. And, behold, I 
 send the promise of my Father upon you ; but tarry 
 ve at Jerusalem till ye are endued with power from 
 on high ; but ye shall receive power after the Holy 
 Ghost is come upon you; for John truly baptized 
 6* 
 
66 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 with water, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy 
 Ghost not many clays hence.' 1 
 
 "By all which Scriptures it is clear that John bap- 
 tized with water only j that the disciples of Christ, in 
 his presence, baptized with the same, and at the same 
 time; that John had foretold them of the baptism 
 of the Holy Spirit, to be administered by Christ; and 
 that Christ declared and appointed the baptism of the 
 Spirit, and not any water-baptism, where he com- 
 manded them to teach all nations, baptizing them, 
 kc. And as the terms of their mission were into the 
 name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, whenever 
 any water was used, (of which we have few instances 
 after the coming of the Holy Spirit,) it was not in the 
 name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, as from 
 that text, but only in the name of the Lord Jesus ; 
 which demonstrates it was John's baptism, and from 
 no new command, but only the continuance of the 
 practice of water-baptism they had been in during 
 his time, before the commencement of the baptism 
 of the Holy Spirit, which initiates into the divine 
 nature. 
 
 "And when the churches became able to bear the 
 mystery and spirituality of the true baptism, the 
 apostle declared that ' there is one Lord, one faith, 
 and one baptism. For by one Spirit are we all bap- 
 tized into one body, the church, which is his body, 
 the fulness of him who filleth all in all.' And as John 
 said of his baptism, 1 I must decrease,' and of Christ's 
 baptism, 'He must increase/ and that which de- 
 
THOMAS STOR Y. 
 
 07 
 
 creaseth' gradually comes to an end, so water-baptism 
 came to an end many ages ago, when the church of 
 Home, by her own wisdom and authority, which is 
 from beneath, without any institution of Christ, and 
 being ignorant of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, 
 invented and imposed rantism, or sprinkling of 
 infants, instead of the baptism of Christ, from which 
 they are departed, and between which there is no 
 resemblance. 
 
 " As the baptism of Christ must increase, without 
 any determinate time of being full, so that which 
 increaseth indefinitely never endeth. The baptism 
 of Christ is an initiation into, or beginning of, the 
 manifestation of his power and kingdom in the mind 
 of man, — which kingdom is not of this world, nor 
 does it stand in any of the elements or powers of it, 
 but is his eternal power manifested in men ; and as 
 we began to know this baptism we began to die to 
 the world and to all the vain-glory and evils o£ it, 
 and became hated and persecuted of those who are 
 after the flesh and are not yet thus baptized or born 
 of the Spirit, but remain in the nature and spirit of 
 this world. Yet we are, by grace, made able to suffer 
 all things, for the sake of Him who hath loved us 
 and into whose name and nature we were baptized by 
 him. 
 
 "And as to thy notion that as Christ was baptized 
 with water by John, so must we also be baptized with 
 the same, by his example, this is not a just conse- 
 quence, but a common fallacy, invented by the letter- 
 
68 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 mongers and hirelings who pervert the Holy Scrip- 
 tures for worldly wealth, power, and honor, though 
 to their own destruction, and the ruin also of many 
 other souls. For as Christ, being born after the flesh 
 among the Jews, submitted to the law of Moees, and 
 was circumcised, and had offerings offered for him as 
 others had, that he might fulfil all the righteousness 
 of the law, and end it, so he was likewise bap- 
 tized of John, to fulfil the righteousness of that 
 dispensation also ; that, all righteousness being ful- 
 filled and concentred in him, he might become 
 righteousness, and the dispenser of it to them that 
 believe, through all generations. As it is written, 
 * Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and 
 the government shall be upon his shoulders; and his 
 name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the 
 Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, [tbe Lord our 
 righteousness,] the Prince of Peace. Of the increase 
 of l*is government and peace there shall be no end/ 
 ' Who of God is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, 
 sanctification, and redemption ■ for in him dwelleth 
 all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are 
 complete in him, which is the head of all principality 
 and power. In whom also ye are circumcised, with 
 the circumcision made without hands, in putting off 
 the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision 
 of Christ ; buried with him in baptism, wherein also 
 ye are risen with him, through the faith of the opera- 
 tion of God, who hath raised him from the dead/ etc. 
 'Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was 
 
T II O M A S S T 0 It Y. 
 
 GO 
 
 against us/ &c. ' Let no mau, therefore, judge you in 
 meat or in drink, or in respect of an holy-day, or of 
 the new moon, or of the sabbath-days, which are a 
 shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ/ 
 &c. ' Wherefore, if ye be dead with Christ from the 
 rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the 
 world, are ye subject to ordinances?' &c. 
 
 u Xow, observe, from this doctrine, that circumci- 
 sion, baptism with water, and all religious ceremonies 
 respecting any thing that may be eaten or drunk, or 
 holy-days, or new moons, or sabbath-days, and all 
 such-like ordinances, are here ended and fulfilled in 
 the Lord Christ, the ever-living substance. So that 
 neither circumcision nor uncircumcision, baptism with 
 water or no such baptism, availeth any thing, but a 
 new creature, born of him, the Word of Life, and 
 complete in him, who is the perfection of beauty and 
 head of all principality and power ; so that if we have 
 Christ we have all, and without him there is nothing 
 at all in religion. 
 
 "3d. The euemy of man having deceived him, 
 under pretence of a friend, and wrought sin and 
 iniquity in his heart, and thereby defiled him and 
 obtained a place in his heart, the Son of God, through 
 the love and mercy of the Father, is made manifest 
 there, to discover unto man the works of the devil, 
 and to destroy them, and to create man anew in the 
 image of God, in righteousness and holiness, and to 
 bring forth in him a new life. And, man being thus 
 the perfect workmanship of the Almighty, created 
 
TO 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 anew unto good works by Jesus Christ, his thoughts, 
 words, actions, and deportments are changed. As it 
 was natural, whilst in his first state in this life, to 
 think, do, and speak evil, so, in his new nature, being 
 born of the Spirit, it is natural to him to think 
 righteously, speak truth without guile, and do good 
 unto all men, and no evil, in thought, word, or action. 
 
 u And though the Lord Jesus closed his sermon 
 upon the mount with these words, 'Be ye therefore 
 perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is 
 perfect,' yet it was not by the letter of the book only 
 that I was first induced to believe this doctrine of 
 sinless perfection in this life, but by the revelation 
 of Jesus Christ as he is the wisdom and power of 
 Grod, who condemns sin in mankind, and, by the 
 manifest operation of his power within, condemns the 
 man of sin, casts him out and spoils his goods. And 
 though we have many temptations from time to time 
 to strive against, we find power in the Spirit of Christ 
 whereby to resist and overcome them. For it is not 
 we alone that strive or resist the evil, but first the 
 Spirit of Christ in us is lifted up as a standard and 
 ensign against the enemy, and then we through him 
 become as co-workers in effecting our own salvation, 
 by continuing in faith and obedience in well-doing. 
 
 "If thou considers only thy own weakness and 
 infirmities, as in the nature and properties of the first 
 Adam in the fall, in whom all die, thou wilt hardly 
 believe the liberty of the sons of God; but, coining 
 to the revealed power of Christ, the second Adam, 
 
THOMAS STORY. 
 
 71 
 
 the quickening Spirit, in whom all are made alive, 
 thou wilt not only believe, but through faithfulness to 
 his power, whicli worketh in thee against all sin, may 
 come to attain that perfection and righteousness and 
 holiness which thou canst not now conceive. 
 
 "And though we are tempted as he was tempted 
 but sinned not, yet if we do not yield we are not 
 charged ; for it is no sin to be tempted ; but to con- 
 sent and enter into the temptation is sin. Aud how 
 should we know the power of the grace of God, or 
 what degree of virtue we have thereby attained, if 
 we were not tempted ? And how should we dis- 
 tinguish the voice of the tempter if we knew not the 
 voice of the Word of Life ? But as God tempteth no 
 man, nor is himself tempted of evil, so he suffers not 
 any of his children, son or daughter, to be tried so 
 as not to escape the evil if they adhere to his grace. 
 
 " By a sinless state in this life, we do not mean 
 such a degree wherein it is not possible for us to 
 commit sin, but such a stability in Christ, in whom 
 there is no sin, that we may resist all the temptations 
 we meet with, after our old sins in time of ignorance 
 are pardoned by faith in the blood of Christ, and our 
 whole man sanctified, justified, and strengthened, by 
 his power remaining in us, against the old adversary, 
 who still seeks to regain, by his subtlety, his old place 
 in us before, by means of any passion or affection 
 unmodified or unsubdued. 
 
 "Christ said to the Jews who did not believe, 'If 
 ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins. 
 
72 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 Whither I go ye cannot come.' And again, to those 
 who did believe, ' If ye continue in my word, then 
 are ye my disciples indeed. And ye shall know the 
 truth; and the truth shall make you free. And if the 
 truth make you free, then are you free indeed.' In 
 this they did not understand him, as appears by their 
 answer. They thought he bad meant some outward 
 freedom ; but he intended their freedom from sin, 
 which is a greater deliverance than out of Egyptian 
 bondage. By this it appears that if we die in our 
 sins we cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. There 
 is, then, great need that we come to Him in time who 
 alone is able to save us j as it is written, < He shall 
 save his people from their sins,' but not in them. 
 
 "The more we obey the discoveries and leadings 
 of the Spirit of truth, the more he sets us free ; and 
 the more we are co-workers with Christ, the more 
 perfect we are. Many things which have formerly 
 been temptations to us, being overcome by faith in 
 his grace, given by the word of faith working in our 
 hearts by love, are now no temptations at all; so that 
 the work becomes easier by degrees. I know the 
 Lord is able to carry on his own work, when, and how, 
 and to what degree, it pleaseth him. And if the 
 creature resists him not, and quenches not the Holy 
 Spirit by wilful or known sinning against him, his 
 work of perfection, as all his works are perfect, can 
 never fail. 
 
 "They who are God's workmanship in his Son are 
 perfect, so far as he hath wrought; and they who 
 
THOMAS 8 T O B Y. 
 
 have given way, and been co-workers with Satan, so 
 far are imperfect. If, then, Satan, who is a creature, 
 was able, through the subtle working of his power and 
 cunning, which is finite, to deprave innocent man 
 and betray him into sin and death, much more is 
 God, the Creator of all things, by his infinite power 
 and wisdom revealed in man through Jesus Christ, 
 able to restore mankind to his first innocence and ' 
 image of God, in righteousness and perfect holiness, 
 to dissolve the chains of death, and fix him forever 
 in the bounds of eternal love, light, and glory, where 
 no darkness, temptation, or defilement can approach, 
 nor any fear of falling can appear for evermore. 
 
 " Oh, my unknown friend, great is the mystery 
 of the redemption of poor lost man, who, through his 
 ignorance of the almightiness of God's saving arm, 
 is ready to fix limits and bounds to the immense God, 
 whose wisdom is past finding out, and incomparably 
 transcends all the imaginations of the thoughts of 
 every creature, men and angels. I could tell thee 
 many things but thou art not in a condition to hear 
 them ; and had much rather thou should come to the 
 knowledge of that power which makes perfect, than 
 write many things to thee concerning it, — which, in 
 the state thou art in, might prove a stumbling-block 
 instead of assistance to thee. 
 
 "But though it was not the Holy Scriptures that 
 first induced me to believe this doctrine, yet I have 
 met with many passages therein since which fully 
 prove it, some of which I have before pointed at 
 
74 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 herein. The great end of the coming of the Son of 
 God is to save mankind from the power of sin, the 
 cause of eternal death and separation from God; and, 
 that sin being removed, with all its evil effects, which 
 stood as a partition-wall, man might again have pre- 
 sent fellowship, in measure, with the Lord, and walk 
 with him in newness of life, and finally be crowned 
 with unspeakable glory. 
 
 " God is light ; sin is darkness ; and between these 
 two there can be no fellowship. But sin being par- 
 doned, as declared, by faith in the blood of Christ, and 
 the root thereof done away and destroyed by the 
 manifestation of his Holy Spirit, then men come to 
 dwell in Christ as he dwells in the Father ; and so 
 they have true knowledge of and fellowship with the 
 Father and the Son, and with one another in him, 
 who is light, in whom there is no sin nor darkness 
 nor shadow at all, — which knowledge and fellowship 
 is greatly wanting among the professors of Christ in 
 this confused age of the world. 
 
 "As to that passage thou alludes to in an epistle 
 of John, where it is said, 'If we say that we have no 
 sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us/ 
 if we say that we have not sinned, we make him a 
 liar, and his word is not in us. The context proves 
 the contrary to thy intention ; for in the seventh 
 verse he saith that 4 if we walk in the light, as he is 
 in the light, we have fellowship one with another, 
 and the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleauseth us 
 from all sin.' And again, ( If we confess our sins, he 
 
THOMAS STOR Y. 
 
 75 
 
 is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to 
 cleanse us from all unrighteousness.' 
 
 "The Jews were a people who built much on the 
 works of their law, thinking themselves blameless in 
 a strict performance of them ; as, ' Paul was circum- 
 cised the eighth day/ &c, - touching the righteous- 
 ness which is in the law, blameless.' And it seems, 
 by the tenor of the Apostle John's Epistle, some such 
 there were among the disciples at that time, who 
 were not come rightly to see that they were, or had 
 been, sinners, and so could not see the true reason 
 of the coming of Christ, to make them righteous and 
 just by his inward work ; which could not be till 
 they came to a real sight of their own sinful and de- 
 generate state* and that all the works of their law, 
 which they could work in that natural state, were 
 but as an unclean thing. And that apostle having 
 labored to convince them, first, that they had sinned, 
 and were sinners, notwithstanding their legal perform- 
 ances, how strictly or exactly soever observed, and 
 though as to these they might be blameless, he then 
 proceeds to preach perfect redemption and salvation 
 by Jesus Christ, especially by his inward workings 
 and teachings in their minds, figuratively termed 
 anointing; as it is written concerning himself, simply 
 considered as man, 'That God anointeth Jesus of 
 Nazareth with the Holy Ghost.' 
 
 "And what man ever more fully preached the 
 doctrine of perfection in this life, or spoke of higher 
 attainments here, than this apostle doth in that 
 
BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 epistle, where he saith, 1 Whosoever is born of God 
 doth not commit sin ; for his seed (that is, the word 
 of God) remaineth in him; and he cannot sin, be- 
 cause he is born of God' ? Again, ' I have written 
 unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the 
 word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome 
 the wicked one.' And their 'fellowship was with the 
 Father and the Son/ in the pure light, where no sin 
 can come ; and the apostles were not only there them- 
 selves, but were laboring in the spirit and power of 
 Christ, to bring those to whom they preached and 
 wrote to the same state and fellowship/' 
 
 We know of no one among our numerous Friends, 
 who have written upon the topics herein treated of, 
 who has advocated the peculiar views of the society 
 in relation to them in a more clear and logical man- 
 ner, and in a style at the same time more concise 
 and agreeable, than Thomas Story has done in his 
 discussion on this occasion ; and we have therefore 
 quoted his remarks at some length, hoping they will 
 call the attention and invite the earnest consideration 
 of some persons under whose observation they might 
 not otherwise have come. 
 
 The next service in which we find this earnest and 
 unwearied laborer in the work of the gospel was a 
 religious visit to Ireland, whither he went some time 
 during the year 1698, in company with William Penn, 
 in whose society he traversed a large part of that 
 kingdom, holding meetings wherever they went and 
 preaching the gospel to the people. Of this visit, 
 
T H 0 M A S STO R Y. 
 
 77 
 
 though one in which our Friend labored greatly in the 
 cause of Truth, we shall not here give the particulars 
 in detail, not finding any thing occurring in it of 
 special interest. 
 
 As early as the year 1693, Thomas Story had felt 
 a strong inclination toward a visit to Friends in 
 America, but remained in England for several years 
 after, until the autumn of 1698, when, in company 
 with his friend Roger Gill, he sailed from the port 
 of Deal in a vessel bound for Virginia. AVhen they 
 had been at sea about two weeks, they encoun- 
 tered a storm of such fury that at one time they 
 were almost in despair of ever seeing land again. 
 Being all collected in the steerage, and sitting for a 
 while in silence, our Friend knelt down and prayed 
 earnestly to the Lord, that, if there was any obstacle 
 in the way of his further progress, he would be 
 pleased to take it away. As soon as he had risen, he 
 at once felt an assurance that all would be well; and, 
 taking his friends by the hand, he told them that the 
 worst was over; u and scarcely," says he, "were the 
 words out of my mouth, when the storm abated and 
 the weather became favorable." For some time after, 
 and during the remainder of the voyage, though 
 meeting, as is usual at that season of the year, w T ith 
 much rough weather, they encountered nothing of an 
 alarming character ; and at last, on the 7th of 12th 
 month, after being at sea for six weeks, arrived 
 safely in the Chesapeake, and came to anchor near 
 Old Point Comfort. A few days after, they took the 
 7* 
 
78 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 ship's long-boat, and, sailing up Queen's Creek, 
 arrived at the house of a Friend, Edward Thomas, 
 where they met with a most cordial welcome. Here 
 they held their first meeting in America, which was 
 largely attended; and several of the neighboring 
 planters, who were not Friends, were seriously im- 
 pressed by Thomas Story's sermon. 
 
 After holding a number of meetings in these parts, 
 they set out through the forest for North Carolina. 
 
 A journey in those days from one Province to 
 another was a serious undertaking, riding on horse- 
 back being the only mode of travelling practicable, 
 where there were few or no roads and the settlements 
 often several days' journey distant from each other. 
 Travellers through these regions were obliged to cany 
 provisions with them and be prepared to pass the 
 night in the woods whenever darkness overtook them : 
 when they came to rivers too deep to ford, their only 
 recourse was to swim their horses over. In this 
 manner did our Friend and his companion proceed, 
 on their gospel mission, through a wild and thinly- 
 settled district, journeying on from one settlement to 
 another, and, wherever two or three could be gathered 
 together, bringing to them the glad tidings of salva- 
 tion. During their travels through Virginia and 
 Carolina our Friend was deeply interested for the 
 Indians, whom he met with frequently; and, whenever 
 opportunity was afforded, he endeavored to impart to 
 them a knowledge of the Christian religion as far as 
 they were capable of receiving it. On one occasion, 
 
THOMAS STORY. 
 
 79 
 
 having assembled a number of them together, and 
 wishing to instruct them in relation to the immortality 
 of the soul, he told them that God had placed a 
 witness in the heart of every man, which approves 
 that which is good and reproves that which is evil. 
 The chief's reply to this proves clearly that even the 
 most ignorant and barbarous people are not left with- 
 out a knowledge of right and wrong; and his ex- 
 pression also shows a full appreciation of the distinc- 
 tion between intellectual and intuitive perceptions. 
 "This," said the chief, (pointing to his head,) " often 
 deceives me; but here," said he,) laying his hand upon 
 his heart,) "it is always right and true." Our Friend 
 came to the conclusion that the conversion of these 
 poor people was not likely ever to be brought about 
 by teaching them the historical part of Christianity, 
 but that, if it was accomplished at all, it must be by 
 the inward working of His Spirit who came to be the 
 light of the Gentiles, in preparing their minds for 
 the reception of Biblical instruction. 
 
 Having finished his labors in Virginia and Carolina, 
 our Friend returned to Maryland, and thence con- 
 tinued his journey into Pennsylvania, arriving in 
 Philadelphia after nearly six months of unremitting 
 labor in the Southern Provinces. Here he remained 
 for several days, lodging with Samuel Carpenter, a 
 prominent Friend at that day : he attended the week- 
 day meeting, which was large and very satisfactory. 
 Some days after, he went to Merion Meeting, which 
 at that time was mainly attended by Welsh Friends : 
 
80 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 on this occasion several persons preached in the 
 Welsh language, which though our friend could not 
 understand, he remarks, "I was as much refreshed 
 as if it had been in my own language, and was con- 
 firmed in the belief that where the Spirit is the same 
 in the preacher and hearer, and is the Truth, the 
 refreshment is rather in that than in the form of 
 words or the language." 
 
 Returning to Philadelphia in the evening, he re- 
 mained there a few days and then set out on a jour- 
 ney to New England, passing through New Jersey 
 and holding meetings there. Arriving at Stamford, 
 in Connecticut, and wishing to hold a meeting there, 
 and as the laws were still very severe against Friends, 
 he was obliged to obtain the sanction of a justice of 
 the peace before he could be permitted to hold the 
 meeting, as was intended, at the inn where he lodged. 
 The justice inquiring of Thomas and his companion 
 what call they had to preach, they asked him what 
 call he considered necessary in that case. " The call 
 of the people," he replied. On this they declared 
 that their calling was of God, and appealed to the 
 principle of Truth in the hearts of the people to judge 
 whether they were called of Grod, and that any other 
 calling they did not regard. Upon this the magis- 
 trate declared that he would not tolerate them. They 
 then informed him that they did not come for his 
 toleration, but only to give notice of their intention 
 to him as a magistrate, so that if a large concourse 
 of people should come together it might give rise to 
 
THOMAS STORY. 
 
 81 
 
 no disturbance. The justice intimating that he 
 would use means to prevent the people from coming 
 to hear them, they left him and returned to their inn. 
 Here they found a number of persons assembled, 
 under various pretences, but in reality come to see 
 the Friends ; for so much were they in fear of their 
 own clergy that they did not dare openly to attend 
 the meeting. Supper being then ready, Thomas 
 Story prayed before they sat down to eat. To this 
 the people were very attentive, and thought better 
 of the Quakers than at first, as they had been always 
 under the impression that Quakers received the mer- 
 cies of God like brutes, never asking a blessing nor 
 returning thanks ; but after this they behaved in a 
 more friendly manner. Xext day at nine o'clock, 
 the time appointed for the meeting, a number of 
 the townspeople being present, while the Friends 
 were sitting in silence, a constable entered, with a 
 warrant from the mayor, containing various charges 
 against them, as heretics, blasphemers, &c. After 
 the warrant was read. Thomas Story stood up and in- 
 formed the people that the law of England was now 
 in favor of toleration, and that they as subjects had 
 no right by their charter to have any law to the con- 
 trary. To this the embryo republicans replied that 
 they did not depend upon the law of England, but 
 stood on their own foundation ; and, having a law of 
 their own that no Quakers should hold a meeting 
 there, none should be permitted, and then com- 
 manded our Friends to begone. Upon this Roger Gill 
 
82 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 stood up and began to address the people, whereupon 
 the constable ordered him to be silent; but Roger was 
 not thus to be put down, but continued recounting to 
 the people the many antichristian acts of the New. 
 England people, of their hanging, whipping, and 
 otherwise abusing the Quakers at a former period, 
 and that he believed the same spirit was alive among 
 them still, and that they would fain be at the same 
 cruel work yet if they had not been overruled by the 
 authority of the home Government. The constables, 
 being unable to effect their object of silencing the 
 Friends, now ordered the people to disperse; but, many 
 still remaining, they commanded the hostess of the 
 inn to forbid the Friends her house. This she 
 was obliged to do ; but they, nothing daunted, went 
 through the streets, Roger Gill crying out, in a loud 
 voice, all the way, " Woe, woe to the inhabitants of this 
 place, who profess God and Christ without the know- 
 ledge of God, and void of his fear !" with some other 
 words to the same effect, and accompanied with a 
 power which quieted the people and brought them 
 under subjection, so that, returning toward their inn 
 and standing outside of the door, our Friends soon had 
 a large audience collected about them, and, despite all 
 the opposition of the magistrates, at last succeeded in 
 having a full and free expression of all they had to 
 deliver. In the evening several of the elders of the 
 church, coming to the inn, commenced a dispute with 
 the Friends on the doctrine of election ; but in this 
 they gained little advantage, Thomas Story being 
 
THOMAS STORY. 
 
 83 
 
 favored to explain many passages of Scripture quoted 
 by them as asserting the doctrine of election and 
 reprobation, in such a way as to bear an entirely dif- 
 ferent construction from the one these Presbyterians 
 would have put upon them. In contemplating the 
 character of the people of New England at this 
 period, we can scarcely believe that these intolerant 
 bigots could have been the ancestors of a people who 
 were to become in after-years the champions of 
 universal freedom and are at this day often found 
 taking the part of the weak against the strong and 
 of the oppressed against the oppressor. Still, so 
 strangely mingled in the human heart are the springs 
 of good and evil, that even in this stern intolerance 
 we can discern the first germ of a noble spirit. An 
 uncompromising hostility to all that was false accord- 
 ing to their idea of truth gradually degeuerated in 
 them into hatred for all who differed with them in 
 opinion j and yet the same steadfastness in their own 
 way, when that way becomes enlightened by a better 
 spirit, is often the stuff of which are made true mar- 
 tyrs, who, suffering themselves meekly for conscience' 
 sake, thus learn forbearance toward their fellows. 
 
 Continuing his journey, Thomas Story met with 
 great opposition in most of the Xew England villages 
 through which he passed, — principally from the clergy, 
 who were disposed as far as possible to prevent him 
 from preaching to the people, and on numerous occa- 
 sions violently assailing the doctrines of the Friends, 
 and seekiug every opportunity to draw them into 
 
S4 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 religious disputes. Their principal ground of anta- 
 gonism to the Friends was their disuse of the ordi- 
 nances, baptism, &c. In these discussions Thomas 
 Story generally took the ground that even if water- 
 baptism were a commanded ordinance under the 
 Christian dispensation, his antagonists were them- 
 selves as far from practising that ordinance as origi- 
 nally instituted as he himself was, clearly proving 
 that the practice of sprinkling infants and others was 
 nothing else than a popish innovation, introduced 
 without even a shadow of Scripture authority; and 
 thus, without entering into any abstract discussion 
 of the necessity of water-baptism in general, he was 
 able to silence all opposition by merely assailing their 
 way of administering it. At Stamford, Connecticut, 
 in a discussion with some of the clergy there, he goes 
 into an explanation of the real meaning of our word 
 "baptism," tracing it to its original derivation and true 
 signification, thus showing to the priests that the Qua- 
 kers (though setting little value on classical learning 
 as a qualification for gospel ministry) were not so des- 
 titute of it as they supposed, and that when occasion 
 required they knew how to make good use of it. " The 
 word BAPT&," says Thomas Story, " of which comes 
 ftaitTitto, in the Greek language, signifies to drown or 
 sink in water, to dip, to overwhelm, to plunge, to thrust 
 into or go into water, to steep, to infuse, to dye or color, 
 to tincture, or, as it were, to impregnate one thing 
 with the nature of another, — as if the subject of bap- 
 tism, which is dipped, should be impregnated with 
 
THOMAS STORY. 
 
 85 
 
 the qualities of the instrument of baptism in which 
 it is dipped or washed. But when the Greeks wished 
 to express sprinkling, a different act from washing or 
 baptism, they use the word 'pwm£*t, which in its 
 various moods is always used, as Heb. ix. 19, where 
 it is 'EppavTiffs, 'he sprinkled/ and 1 Peter i. 2, 
 f Peam<rat3v atparoq 'lyeo! Xptara, and aspcrsioncm san- 
 guinis Jesu Christi, ' sprinkling of the blood of Jesus 
 Christ ;' so that rantizing, or sprinkling of infants, 
 is an ordinance of Christ, and that they who decline 
 it are heretics and schismatics, has yet to be proved, 
 and is a false and unchristian charge.' 7 Addressing 
 himself afterward more particularly to the people at 
 large, he showed that they had no baptism at all, 
 even taking the Scripture authority for it in its most 
 literal sense, but were only in the practice of a super- 
 stitious rite originated by the Church of Rome, and 
 as originally practised by that sect was accompanied 
 by various ridiculous rites and ceremonies, such as 
 anointing with oil, putting salt in the child's mouth 
 and spittle upon his ears and nostrils, and then ask- 
 ing the unconscious infant, as though he understood 
 them, whether he renounced the devil and all his 
 works, and the pomps and vanities of the world, &c. : 
 the effect they ascribe to all this being that it remits 
 both original and actual sin, and also infuses justify- 
 ing grace into the soul; then the Lutherans and 
 Episcopalians, reforming somewhat from Rome, re- 
 jected some of their superstitions, but still retained 
 the godfathers and godmothers and the sign of the 
 8 
 
80 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 cross. And when their predecessors, the Presby- 
 terians and Independents, again dissented from these 
 last, they rejected a portion of these rites as super- 
 stitions j but, their eyes not being fully opened, they 
 could not perceive that the sprinkling of infants was 
 nothing but popery like the rest. And either so 
 ignorant, or else wilfully blinded, were their ministers, 
 that Friends are branded as schismatics and deniers of 
 the ordinances of Christ, for only bearing a testimony 
 against popish relics and inventions. After Thomas 
 Story had concluded, an old minister present, taking 
 him aside, said, " Pray, sir, cannot you pass quietly 
 along and let these things alone? for though there is 
 little in them the people believe in them, and, being 
 innocent things, they do no harm." To this he replied 
 "that, as their forefathers and themselves always 
 professed to be very earnest in reforming the errors 
 and superstitions of the papists and in exposing them 
 to the people, so he was concerned, for no other 
 motive than the love of truth and of his fellow-men, 
 to expose in like manner all errors that yet remained, 
 so far as he was enabled by divine grace to do so; 
 and thus, though sprinkling of infants was of little 
 moment in itself, but having been set up as an ordi- 
 nance of Christ, which it was not, it became of per- 
 nicious consequence to the Christian religion : the 
 people being taught to believe they have Christian 
 baptism when in truth they had none at all, they 
 were thus led into a false security, and seek no 
 further for the true baptism of Christ, which is only 
 
THOMAS STOR Y. 
 
 87 
 
 by the Holy Spirit, and without the knowledge of 
 which no soul could be saved." Concluding with 
 these remarks, and their opposers having nothing to 
 say in refutation, our Friends returned to their lodg- 
 ings, and soon after left the town and continued their 
 journey. Holding a meeting some days later at 
 Amesbupy, Massachusetts, they were assailed by a 
 certain Joseph Ring, who came forward and read 
 from a paper a number of objections against Friends 
 and their doctrines. The first of these was, " You 
 say your preachers have an infallible spirit, and that 
 Christ doth dwell in them." JSelieviug that the 
 views of the society of Friends on the subject of 
 gospel ministry and spiritual inspiration are often 
 misunderstood by people of other denominations, we 
 would call their attention to the following remarks 
 made by Thomas Story in answer to this objection. 
 
 " Then I proceeded thus: — 'I now perceive I have 
 one to deal with who is ignorant of Christianity, 
 though as a seeming inquirer : I therefore begin with 
 that point of infallibility. People, it is necessary in 
 this case that you should clearly understand what is 
 intended by an infallible spirit'. We do not mean a 
 spirit whereby to know what weather it will be to- 
 morrow, or the good or ill fortunes of mankind in 
 this world, or the like, but mean only the Spirit of 
 Truth, that is, the Spirit of Christ, who is the Truth, 
 and infallibly discovers sin in men, good and evil> right 
 and wrong, in matters of religion, aud infallibly leads 
 into all truth, and out of all error, in all things 
 
4 
 
 88 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 respecting our own salvation, as the same is received, 
 believed in, and obeyed. Those who are made 
 ministers of this spirit, by its powerful working in 
 them, may thereby, but not otherwise, infallibly 
 declare the mind of God to the people, being them- 
 selves perfectly assured by the Spirit of the truth of 
 what they deliver ; and yet do not pretend to impose 
 their own sense, though infallible to themselves, upon 
 any others, but as they also are satisfied of the same 
 truths by the same Spirit. And as sure as men can 
 distinguish and be certain of outward objects by the 
 eye and light of the sun in the firmament of heaven, 
 so sure men may be in matters of a spiritual nature, 
 by the inshining of the light of the Spirit of Christ 
 into the understanding. But if mankind will not 
 fully believe and obey, and attentively wait upon the 
 Spirit in their hearts, they may and do err, both in 
 doctrine and practice j and this is the cause why so 
 many and great errors are in the world.' And then 
 I turned to my opponent and queried, 'Dost thou 
 believe that the Spirit of Christ is an infallible 
 spirit V 
 
 "He answered yea. 'Well, then, since thou hast 
 agreed to be determined in these points by the Holy 
 Scriptures, I prove the Spirit of Christ is in all 
 Christians ; and first, in his ministers : "At that day 
 ye shall know that I am in my Father, and you in 
 me, and I in you." And secondly, in all others : — 
 "Now, if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is 
 none of his; and if Christ be in you, the body is 
 
THOMAS STOR Y. 
 
 89 
 
 dead because of sin." These words, "any man," in 
 the text, are indefinite terms, signifying every man, 
 male and female; I, thou, he, she, they, (pointing 
 to the people all around,) all people. And since thou 
 hast confessed this is an infallible Spirit, and the 
 Scriptures say every man hath it, as it is written, 
 "The manifestation of the Spirit is given to every 
 man to profit withal, " then thou and I both have the 
 Spirit of Christ, or once had it ; and if we are not 
 infallibly led by it in the way of Truth, we have not 
 profited, and it is our own fault and loss.' 
 
 "By this time he was weary of his undertaking, 
 and silent as to any further argument on the first 
 point; and so we proceeded to the other, — viz. : That 
 Christ dwells in his people. 
 
 "To prove the absurdity, as he thought, of this, he 
 brought that Scripture where, Thomas and the apostles 
 doubting of the bodily appearance of Christ after his 
 resurrection, the Lord said to them, <A spirit hath 
 not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.' 'Now/ said 
 he, 1 since Christ hath flesh and bones, as we have, 
 how can he be in every one of you V 
 
 "Upon this I desired the people to be still, and 
 told them, 'This man's imagination: concerning 
 Christ's being in his people is very gross, carnal, and 
 foolish, and not at all as we understand it ; for we 
 speak of the light and Spirit of Christ in the sense 
 mentioned in the other argument, and not of his 
 human body. But as the body of the sun is at a 
 great distance in the open firmament, yet his light 
 
90 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 and influence shine over and affect all the earth 
 and into many thousands of houses and places at the 
 same time, and in what proportion the light shineth 
 into any house, hy the same proportion is the virtue, 
 influence, and power of the sun there dispensed j so, 
 and infinitely more, it is with Christ, whose holy 
 body, though far remote from us, yet his Spirit is 
 everywhere, in all hearts; and he is the "Word of 
 God," and "true light/' that lighteth every man that 
 cometh into the world.' The mystery which hath 
 been hid from ages and generations, but now is made 
 manifest to his saints; to whom God would make 
 known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery 
 among the Gentiles, (whose offspring we are,) which 
 is ' Christ in you, the hope of glory.' 
 
 "But I have something more to say of Christ's 
 being in men. It is no new thing for perverse men 
 to oppose the Truth j and no wonder it falls thus to 
 our lot now, since the like objection was moved to 
 the Apostle Paul, and by such too as had sinned, 
 seeking a proof of Christ's speaking in him; and all 
 the proof he thought fit to give them was, to bid 
 them examine themselves whether they were in the 
 faith : — ' Prove your own selves ; know ye not your own 
 selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be 
 reprobates V 
 
 "My adversary quickly turned to the place, and I 
 bid him read it to the people, and then said to him, 
 ' Thou art the man seeking a proof of Christ being in 
 us. Hast thou examined thyself on that account V 
 
THOMAS S T 0 R Y. 
 
 1*1 
 
 'Yea/ 'Hast thou proved thyself?' 'Yes.' 'What 
 hast thou fouud V Then he, perceiving what the con- 
 clusion was like to be, would have evaded and shuffled. 
 'No, but/ said I, 'give me a plain and positive 
 answer : hast thou found Christ in thee ?' But he 
 would not answer. Then I observed to the people, 
 'He confesseth, you see, that he hath examined and 
 proved himself, but dares not say he hath found 
 Christ in him : therefore the text is conclusive upon 
 him, he is a reprobate ; and as such I set him aside, 
 as not worthy to be talked with any more in matters 
 of Christianity.' He said no more, but soon after 
 slunk away out of the company. This struck an awe 
 upon the people J for the Lord was with me, and was 
 my director to his own glory; and presently came to 
 me a young man in a consternation, and said, 'Ah, 
 sir ! I would not have been before you to-day, as that 
 man was, for the whole world/ 
 
 "Immediately upon this came another sober young 
 man to me, and said, 'I have heard what you said 
 this day in the meeting, and many things I liked, 
 which you explained beyond what I ever heard from 
 any of your persuasion; but one thing I am not 
 satisfied in : that which you call spiritual, I call 
 natural.' 'What is that?' said I. 'You said, that 
 which reproves sin in mankind is sufficient for salva- 
 tion, provided it be believed in and obeyed, which I 
 cannot receive. For that Scripture which you men- 
 tioned will be against you, where you said, "When 
 the Gentiles, which have not a law, do by nature 
 
02 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 the things contained in the law, these, having not 
 the law, are a law unto themselves, which show the 
 work of the law written in their hearts." Now/ said 
 he, 'that which reproves sin, the Gentiles had before 
 Christ came, even from the beginning ; how then can 
 that be the Spirit of Christ, but only the law, the 
 same that reproves men now ? It is the remains of 
 that righteousness that was in Adam in his state of 
 creation before he fell.' 
 
 "I answered, 'That if he rightly considered that 
 righteousness which was in Adam before he fell, it is 
 the same that the saints and people of God now have, 
 after they are restored out of the fall. The better to 
 understand this, let us observe what John the Evan- 
 gelist saith concerning Christ the Word of God : — 
 "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was 
 with God, and the Word was God. In him was life, 
 and the life was the light of men. And the light 
 shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended 
 it not. That was the true light, which lighteth 
 every man that cometh into the world. And the 
 Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we 
 beheld his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of 
 the Father,) full of grace and truth. And of his ful- 
 ness have we all received, and grace for grace. For 
 the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth 
 came by Jesus Christ."' 
 
 "The Word, Wisdom, and Power of God, there- 
 fore, clothed and veiled with a reasonable soul and 
 human flesh, is Jesus Christ, born into this world by 
 
THOMAS STOR Y. 
 
 03 
 
 the blessed Virgin Mary. This word is the right- 
 eousness of God, which was light and wisdom in 
 Adam before he fell; and by whom God judged and 
 condemned Adam for sin, in disobeying and depart- 
 ing from this Word, light, and life, through unbelief 
 and actual transgression. It was by the light and 
 life of this "Word that God, the Father of all, strove 
 with the old world to reclaim them, as by a law 
 written in them, and against which they likewise 
 rebelled, — whereby the Almighty was provoked at 
 length to destroy them by the flood, save righteous 
 Xoah, who had not offended, and his- family. 
 
 "And after the flood the same law of light and 
 life was still with and in the posterity of Xoah and 
 his family, by which they had the knowledge of God, 
 of the creation, and of moral righteousness ; and, 
 being obedient, they were ruled and governed thereby 
 for a time. It was by this divine nature in their 
 hearts, and not by their own fallen and corrupt 
 nature, that they did the things contained in the 
 moral law; but by degrees they likewise degenerated, 
 as the old world did, and departed from the law of 
 light which gave them that knowledge: ' Because 
 that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as 
 God, neither were thankful, but became vain in 
 their imaginations, and (departing from that light) 
 their foolish hearts were darkened,' and they became 
 darkness, 
 
 '•Departing from the wisdom of this divine Word, 
 they became fools and vile idolaters ; and therefore 
 
94 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 God departed from them, and ' gave them up to their 
 own hearts' lusts, and to believe and follow lies and 
 vile affections. And even as they did not like to 
 retain God in their knowledge, God gave them up to a 
 reprobate mind, to do those things which are not 
 convenient ) being filled with all unrighteousness, 
 fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, 
 full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity, whis- 
 perers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, 
 boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to 
 parents, without understanding, covenant-breakers, 
 without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful.' 
 And though they knew at the same time, by that 
 law of light, that the judgment of God was against 
 them for these things, yet they did them, and took 
 pleasure one in another therein. And therefore God 
 left them under the power of their own sins, in this 
 miserable state, for many ages. 
 
 " In the mean time, God made choice of Abraham 
 and his posterity, in whom to restore this law of light 
 and life. For the children of Israel, being in bond- 
 age and a state of slavery in Egypt, were also 
 degenerated and become transgressors ; and therefore 
 God added the law of moral righteousness, by the 
 mediation of Moses, his servant, written on tables of 
 stone by the finger of God; which, for the trans- 
 gressions of the people, were broken by the mediator 
 of that law, on the side of the mountain before which 
 they were. But the mercy of God returned unto 
 them, and he commanded Moses to prepare other 
 
THOMAS STORY. 
 
 95 
 
 tables of stone, on which to write the same law : 
 which thing, though matter of fact, is also an alle- 
 gory. For the law of light and life, being written in 
 the hearts of men from the beginning, was broken 
 and blotted out by their sins; but the Most High, in 
 love and mercy to lost and degenerate mankind, pro- 
 vided a more excellent mediator than Moses, and of 
 a better and more powerful law, which I may further 
 speak of in the sequel. Though this law was given 
 by Moses, by the command of God, and the people 
 received it as reasonable and good, yet, being in- 
 wardly departed from the light and life of the divine 
 Word, that outward law could not give them life, but 
 condemnation j for they could not keep it in the 
 state they were in; and therefore the Almighty, in 
 justice and mercy, restored to them a manifestation 
 of the same Word, and light and life in him. This 
 is the eternal Word and commandment of God 
 preached by Moses in that day unto Israel in the 
 wilderness, of whom he saith, ' This commandment 
 which I command thee this day, it is not hidden 
 from thee, neither is it far otF : it is not in heaven, 
 that thou shouldst say, Who shall go up for us to 
 heaven, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it 
 and do it ? Neither is it beyond the sea, that thou 
 shouldst say, Who shall go over the sea for us, and 
 bring it unto us, that we may hear it and do it? But 
 the Word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth and 
 in thy heart, that thou mayest do it/ 
 
 "In this manner was Christ preached by Moses 
 
BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 many ages before he came in the flesh, and, after he 
 did so come, was preached in the same way by the 
 Apostle Paul j for the same that Moses preached as 
 the Commandment and the Word, the apostle calleth 
 Christ, and the Word of faith, whom they preached, 
 and whom they knew no more after the flesh, after 
 they had thoroughly preached him come in the flesh, 
 but consequently as he is the ' Word of God, Light 
 of the world, divine Truth, and quickening Spirit.' 
 
 "And again, 'All Israel did eat the same spiritual 
 meat and did all drink the same spiritual drink, for 
 they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, 
 and that Rock was Christ/ And this*is also the 
 same of which he speaketh where he saith, i Who- 
 soever drinketh of the water that I shall give him 
 shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give 
 him shall be in him a well of water springing up 
 into everlastiDg life.' 
 
 "And, to make this necessary point yet plainer, 
 observe, 1 In the last day, that great day of the feast, 
 Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let 
 him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on 
 me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall 
 flow rivers of living water. But this spake he of the 
 Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive ; 
 for the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because that 
 Jesus was not yet glorified.' 
 
 "But the Jews also rebelled against the Light, 
 Spirit, and Word of God so preached unto them by 
 Moses aforesaid; and therefore the law without could 
 
THOMAS STOR Y. 
 
 07 
 
 not save them ; yet the righteous and most merciful 
 Creator did not forsake them forever, but opened a 
 door of hope, by his gracious promises aforehand, 
 that they might believe and obey when they came to 
 pass ; and therefore saith, 1 Behold the days come, 
 saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with 
 the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah; 
 but this shall be the covenant : I will put my law in 
 their inward parts, and write it in their hearts, and 
 will be their God, and they shall be my people/ 
 Again, I will put my fear in their hearts, that they 
 shall not depart from me. 
 
 "The Almighty, of his abounding mercy and kind- 
 ness, remembered likewise the apostate and benighted 
 Gentiles, promising unto them also the same law and 
 covenant of Light, by the same Mediator: 'I the 
 Lord have called thee in righteousness, and will hold 
 thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a 
 covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles.' 
 And he said, ' It is a light thing that thou shouldst 
 be my servant, to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and 
 to restore the preserved of Israel j I will also give 
 thee for a light of the Gentiles, that thou mayest be 
 my salvation unto the end of the earth.' 
 
 "This covenant and the messenger thereof is the 
 same, whom the Most High describes aforehand, ' to 
 the Jew first, and also to the Gentile.' To the Jew 
 he saith, ' Therefore the Lord himself shall give you 
 a sign : behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a 
 son, and shall call his name Immanuel.' And to 
 9 
 
98 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 both Jews and Gentiles he saith, ' Behold my servant 
 whom I uphold, mine elect, in whom my soul delight- 
 eth. I have put my spirit upon him. he shall bring 
 forth judgment to the Gentiles/ This is he of whom 
 it was said seven hundred and forty years before he 
 came, 'Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is 
 given, and the government shall be upon his 
 shoulder/ This is he who spake unto the Father in 
 Spirit, saying, ' Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest 
 not; but a hody hast thou prepared me/ This is he 
 who received that holy body of human flesh, with a 
 reasonable soul, the complete nature of man. This 
 is the Lord Jesus Christ, born of the Virgin Mary j 
 who, by command of the Father, wrought all those 
 wonders attributed to him in the Holy Scriptures. 
 
 " This is he who offered himself upon the cross, at 
 Jerusalem of old, 'a propitiation for the sins of the 
 whole world/ This is the Light of the Gentiles, in 
 whom they are to believe and trust. The Mediator 
 of the new covenant, not of works, but of light and 
 life from God ; not that which is natural, but eternal. 
 This is the true witness of God; the finger and 
 power of God, by which he writeth and restoreth the 
 law of righteousness; the law of the Spirit of life, 
 which makes free from the law of sin and death, and 
 which the law without, given by Moses, could not 
 do. This is the Law and Word of Life that was in 
 Adam before he fell. 
 
 " This is the divine, immortal, and unchangeable 
 truth of God, which 'reproves the world of sin, of 
 
THOMAS S T O R Y. 
 
 99 
 
 righteousness, and of judgment;' that reproves and 
 manifests sin in all mankind; and for want of faith, 
 love, and obedience to this divine Law, Light, and 
 Word of God, the faithless and disobedient world 
 remains in condemnation by that Word. For, till 
 they do so, both Jews and Gentiles remain aud are 
 concluded under siu ; as saith the Son of God, ' He 
 that believeth on him is not condemned ; but he that 
 believeth not is condemned already, because he hath 
 not believed in the name of the only -begotten Son of 
 God. And this is the condemnation, that light is 
 come into the world, and men loved darkness rather 
 than light, because their deeds were evil. He that 
 believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; and he 
 that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the 
 wrath of God abideth on him.' 
 
 " As the mystery of iniquity began to work in the 
 days of the apostles, so there were many antichrists 
 even then in the world, who were neither Jews nor 
 heathens, but professors of the name of the true God, 
 and of Jesus Christ the Son of God and Saviour of 
 the world ; and they went out from the apostles and 
 their doctrine, and from the teaching of the grace 
 • and Spirit of God, the holy anointing which teacheth 
 all things. They turned their ears from the Truth, 
 and gave ear to fables, heaping to themselves teachers 
 after their hearts' lusts, having itching ears ; they 
 went back under the law of types, which was ended by 
 the law of liberty, through Christ Jesus our Lord. 
 
 '■ And as great is the mystery of iniquity, it hath 
 
100 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 so wrought in the Christian world, that the same that 
 is so called is degenerated as the old world, and as 
 the old Gentiles, the heathen and apostate Jews, and 
 become antichristian, and in utter darkness and 
 confusion. They once, in the days of old, spake 
 one language from the one Word and voice of God, 
 speaking divine wisdom and the knowledge of 
 the one true God, and of Jesus Christ the Son of 
 God, in every living soul. But by their apostasy 
 from the divine light and Spirit of God, and from his 
 wisdom, grace, and power, they followed their own 
 spirit and wisdom, which is darkness, into many evil 
 inventions, and multiplied their superstitions, and 
 became miserable idolaters, worshipping a piece of 
 bread for their God. and wallowing in all the sins of 
 the Gentiles and heathens of old. So that their lan- 
 guage, as at Babel, is confounded, and they are no 
 more one, but scattered, and shall unite no more till 
 they return by him from whom they are fallen • to 
 the covenant of God, even that true light of his Son, 
 1 which lighteth every man that cometh into the 
 world y of whose fulness, all those who now believe 
 in him, and behold his glory, as of the only and first 
 begotten Son of God, have now received, as they did 
 of old, and grace for grace. 1 This grace bringeth 
 salvation, and hath appeared to all men, teaching us 
 that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should 
 live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present 
 world. By this grace we are saved, through faith; 
 and that not of ourselves: it is the gift of God/ 
 
THOMAS STORY. 
 
 101 
 
 From all which proofs it is plain that the same that 
 reproves sin in man is the Spirit of Christ, the Word 
 of God, which in the beginning was the light of men; 
 and it is not natural, but spiritual, and the mystery 
 that lay hid in the Gentiles from the foundation of 
 the world, though they were darkness, and this light 
 had not been comprehended by them. 
 
 " During the time that passed on these subjects, the 
 people were very sober, and the young man, being 
 deeply under the effects of a wrong education and 
 tradition, replied, ' Faith in this light cannot be suf- 
 ficient; for except a man be born again he cannot 
 see the kingdom of heaven.' 
 
 "That is true; but, seeing we must be born again, 
 we cannot do that of ourselves : there is none can do 
 it for us but God. And he doth that great work by 
 the word of his wisdom and power, which is Christ, 
 the light of the intellectual world, the Sun of right- 
 eousness, and glorious luminary of the mind. And 
 we are to believe in him, that we may be born again 
 of him, who is the second Adam, the Lord from 
 heaven, the quickening Spirit; as it is written, * While 
 ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be 
 children of the light/ 'And if children, then heirs, 
 heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ.' But it 
 reasonably followeth that if no faith in this divine 
 light, then no children of God through him who is 
 that light, and elect seed of God ; and if not chil- 
 dren, then not heirs of God, cor of his promises, 
 which are all unto this divine Seed, and all true in 
 9* 
 
102 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 him. And if we do not believe in the Word of God, 
 we cannot please him, or be created anew unto good 
 works by him, which are indispensable to every child 
 of God, as the evidence of that faith and work of 
 regeneration in the mind; 1 and to be carnally minded 
 is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and 
 peace, through Jesus Christ our Lord/ 
 
 " Christ testifieth of himself, that he is 1 the light 
 of the world;' and the apostles of Christ were sent by 
 him, to testify that God is light, and to turn man- 
 kind 'from darkness to that light, from the power 
 of Satan unto God;' from that darkness and igno- 
 rance which had covered the earth, and from that 
 gross darkness which had covered the people, unto 
 the Son of God, and unto the Father by him. 
 
 "So then, in order to our being born from above, 
 there must first be faith in Christ, as he is the divine 
 Light, and second covenant of God; and the first 
 work of this light in man toward that faith is the 
 manifestation, reproof, and condemnation of sin in 
 the heart, mind, and understanding of man : ( For all 
 things that are reproved are made manifest by the 
 light; for [after the manner of men] whatsoever doth 
 make manifest is light.' 
 
 "Thus the testimony of the Holy Scriptures con- 
 cur clearly to the proof of this most needful doctrine, 
 that the reprover of sin in the mind and understand- 
 ing of man is not man himself ; neither is it the evil 
 one who tempts man to sin. For then he would be 
 both tempter and reprover, and divided against him- 
 
T II 0 M A S 6 T 0 R Y. 
 
 103 
 
 self; and even that way his kingdom and power 
 could not stand. But it is the divine light and spirit 
 of Christ, that sin may be manifested, reproved, 
 become exceeding sinful and be condemned, and 
 through faith in the Manifester and Reprover be 
 forsaken, pardoned, remitted, aud by the work of the 
 Holy Spirit of Christ fully removed, and the minds 
 of mankind purified, and made lucid as the day, and 
 formed into light in the Lord. 
 
 " In the conclusion of this I felt the weight re- 
 moved from oft' my spirit, and the love and goodness 
 of Truth to arise toward the young man ; aud he 
 took me kindly by the hand, and said he had other 
 points to discourse, but would now leave them. But 
 I believe the main objection was removed, and the 
 mark hit, for he departed cheerful ; and some others 
 also who seemed to have had something to say, when 
 they had heard these things, were silent, and all 
 ended in peace, to the glory of the Lord, whose 
 service and honor, and common good of mankind, 
 through the grace of God, we only aim at in all these 
 things." 
 
 While on the same journey through Xew England, 
 or, rather, returning from it toward Philadelphia, 
 through Long Island, at a village called Jerusalem, 
 he was led into some explanation of bis views on the 
 subject of the resurrection of the body, which we give 
 as a concise and clear expression of Friends' belief in 
 that particular. 
 
 " But one among ourselves, who had professed the 
 
104 
 
 BRIEF M E ~Sl 0 I R OF 
 
 Truth about twenty years, took exception against 
 something Roger said concerning the resurrection of 
 the body; for in his testimony he said he had 
 once believed that if the body of a man were burnt 
 to ashes, and those ashes sifted through a sieve over 
 all the earth, sea, and air, yet at the last day the 
 same dust should come together again, and the same 
 body should then arise ; but/ said he, ' I now believe 
 otherwise;' and then cited the words of the apostle 
 to the too curious and captious inquirer, c Thou fool, 
 thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare 
 grain/ &c. And this man, coming into the Friends' 
 house after the meeting, made objections in public, 
 saying he believed in the resurrection of the very 
 same body; ' for/ said he, 'the apostle saith, it is 
 sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body/ &c. 
 And Roger discoursed with him on the subject, and 
 adduced arguments sufficient to have satisfied any 
 sober inquirer; and yet he continued to cavil. Then, 
 for the sake of the people and others that might be 
 weak among us, I called for the Bible and read that 
 part to them, viz. : 'That which thou sowest, thou 
 sowest not that body which shall be, but bare grain, 
 it may chance of wheat/ &c. ' Therefore the same 
 body doth not arise ; but as the grain of wheat dies 
 to its present form of being, by sending forth a blade, 
 being no other than the one grain expanded, and 
 that blade a stalk, and often many ; and that stalk, 
 or stalks, an ear, or many, with other grains, but not 
 the same individual grain, of the same nature, shape, 
 
THOMAS S T O R Y. 
 
 105 
 
 and kind : so argues the apostle for the resurrection 
 of the body, that that which is sown ariseth no more, 
 but God gives it a body as it pleaseth him ; though 
 no comparison will hold in every circumstance.' 
 Upon this he was silent, and so the matter ended. 
 But upon our inquiry what this man was, he appeared 
 to be one of those the people call wet Quakers. No 
 wonder, then, he remained so carnally minded, though 
 so long a professor of the Truth ; fur it is not profes- 
 sion only, nor confession alone, that the Almighty 
 regards, but faith, which works by love, to the con- 
 version of the mind to the will of God, through the 
 sanctification of the Spirit. 
 
 " Xow, though we fully believe the resurrection 
 of the dead, both of the just and unjust, yet we take 
 not upon us to determine the mode of existence in 
 that state, or with what bodies they shall come, but 
 leave it with the Almighty to give unto us bodies as 
 may best please him. But there is a wonderful 
 mystery in this thing, far out of the sigbt of the 
 natural man ; but * blessed and holy is he that hath 
 part in the first resurrection : on such the second 
 death hath no power.' And the Son of God hath 
 said, 'I am the resurrection and the life: he that 
 believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he 
 live ; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall 
 never die.' So then they who are truly in him, aod 
 he in them, are arisen with him, and live in and with 
 him, to the praise of his own arm, who reigneth in 
 glory for ever and ever." 
 
106 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 Leaving Long Island, they crossed into New Jer- 
 sey, and, having several meetings on the way, arrived 
 safely in Burlington some time in the 7th month, 
 1699. Here they learned further particulars of a 
 terrible pestilence still raging in Philadelphia, which, 
 judging from, the records we have of its effects and 
 peculiarities, must have been the yellow fever; and 
 as that disease was then raging in the West Indies, 
 it was probably brought in by vessels trading from 
 Philadelphia to those islands. As the time of the 
 yearly meeting was approaching, Thomas Story, un- 
 deterred by any fear of contagion, proceeded to 
 Philadelphia without delay. Here he found many 
 of his friends on sick and dying beds; and the deaths 
 by the fever had averaged from six to eight per day 
 for several weeks. Our friend lodged at the house 
 of Edward Shippen, who had recently been prostrated 
 by the fever, but was then restored to health. 
 
 Some Friends had written from Burlington to 
 Friends in Philadelphia, proposing to adjourn the 
 approaching meeting until a cooler time. To this 
 proposition they replied that, until the meeting 
 should come together, there was no power to adjourn 
 it : at the same time, however, they thought best to 
 discourage the great numbers of young persons and 
 others who usually came to town on those occasions, 
 and recommended those persons only to attend who 
 were necessary to conducting the affairs of society. 
 The meeting was consequently held, and was large, 
 considering the circumstances. And, says Thomas 
 
r 
 
 THOMAS STORY. 107 
 
 Story, who was present at the time, "the Lord so 
 evidently appeared with us that there was no room 
 for doubt but that it was his will that we should hold 
 our meeting and serve God therein as well in times 
 of adversity and affliction as in prosperity and less 
 seeming danger. And what was most remarkable 
 was that though the pestilence had raged with more 
 than usual violence the week before, yet there was 
 not a single new case, either among those who came 
 to the town, or among the citizens, while the meeting 
 lasted ; and though there were several cases after it was 
 over, and a few deaths, yet very few in comparison ; and 
 soon after it pleased Providence to put a final stop to 
 the disease." Thomas Story and his companion both 
 remained in Philadelphia for some time after the 
 meeting was over, visiting the sick and afflicted, and 
 even in the midst of this great distress was greatly 
 comforted by the manifest presence of the love of 
 God to his people, and in the resignation and peace 
 evinced by those who lay ill of the disease. "I saw," 
 says our friend, "no lofty countenances, nor heard 
 any jesting or laughter, but every face was pale, and 
 many hearts were humbled, as those who waited 
 every moment for a summons to the grave. But the 
 just appeared with open faces, and walked upright 
 in the streets, rejoicing in secret in that perfect love 
 which casteth out all fear." Though Thomas Story 
 was for some time in almost daily intercourse with 
 those laboring under the fever, he escaped it entirely; 
 but his faithful companion, Roger Gill, who had prayed 
 
108 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 in the meeting that his life might be accepted as a 
 sacrifice for the people, that a stop might be put to 
 the contagion, was, as it seemed, taken at his word; 
 for he was not long afterward seized with the malady, 
 and died, in a strange land, far away from home and 
 kindred, yet comforted with a full assurance of life 
 everlasting in a better country. 
 
 The next religious service in which our Friend was 
 engaged was a journey through Maryland and the 
 lower counties of Pennsylvania, now constituting the 
 State of Delaware. Though much might be related 
 of the particulars of this journey, both profitable and 
 interesting, our space will not allow of it here. We 
 next find him, in the latter part of 9th month, 1699, 
 at Chester, whither he had gone to meet with Wil- 
 liam Penn, who was then coming up the river Dela- 
 ware on his second and last visit to his much-loved 
 colony. Their meeting was a joyful one, as a warm 
 friendship and sympathy had long existed between 
 them. They lodged together that night at Chester, 
 and had a long conversation about the government 
 of the Province. After this interview our Friend was 
 engaged in the service of the gospel in different parts 
 of New Jersey and Pennsylvania for several months, 
 and, returning to Philadelphia, remained there till the 
 beginning of the year 1700. Feeling now that his 
 visit to Friends in America- had, through the grace 
 of G-od, been satisfactorily accomplished, he was 
 ready to return to England, and would have done so 
 but that his friend the Proprietor, finding the affairs of 
 
THOMAS S T O II Y. 
 
 lv'J 
 
 the Province greatly embarrassed, urged him to remain 
 and give his assistance in the arrangement of them. 
 Having received letters from some of his friends in 
 England advising him to remain in America, and also 
 entertaining a very great love and respect toward Wil- 
 liam Penu, and believing that his services might be 
 useful, he consented to remain and assist his friend the 
 Governor in these important affairs, as far as he was 
 capable of so doing. As Thomas Story was engaged 
 in no regular business, and, as we have seen, under 
 the necessity of maintaining himself by some occupa- 
 tion, the Governor now appointed him member of 
 the council of state, and Keeper of the Great Seal: 
 also Master of the Rolls, and one of his commissioners 
 .of property for inquiring into and confirming old 
 rights, and granting lands to new purchasers. Under 
 these circumstances, our Friend concluded to settle in 
 Philadelphia, and, in addition to his public offices, 
 was much employed in the business of conveyancing, 
 to which, as we have mentioned, he had been accus- 
 tomed at home. 
 
 Some years after, in 1706, he was married to 
 Anne, the daughter of Edward Shippen the elder, 
 and received as part of her dowry the large house on 
 South Second Street, which was in after-times torn 
 down to afford in part a site for the Bank of Penn- 
 sylvania. This house afterward became the property 
 of James Logan, and is described as being then the 
 largest house in Philadelphia, and beautifully situated 
 on a small eminence, with a row of tall pines in the 
 10 
 
110 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 rear and a front orchard of fruit-trees close by; over- 
 looking the rising city beyond the Dock Creek; in its 
 front a beautiful green lawn, gently sloping to the 
 stream, and the whole prospect unobstructed to the 
 Delaware and the Jersey shore. It was not, however, 
 until six years of arduous labor in the service of the 
 gospel that our friend was permitted to settle down 
 in this pleasant home. About the middle of the 5th 
 month, 1702, he departed from Philadelphia on a 
 second visit to New England. On this journey, as 
 during the former, he met with bitter and unceasing 
 opposition from those among whom he was called to 
 labor in the gospel. He was much engaged at this 
 time in encouraging and exhorting to steadfastness 
 those Friends in New England who were suffering 
 severe persecution on account of their refusing to 
 serve in the army, — a law having been made, while 
 Queen Anne was at war with Louis XIV., that all the 
 inhabitants capable of bearing arms who, upon being- 
 summoned, should refuse to serve, should be fined, 
 and on their refusal to pay such fine were to be sold 
 until their labor was sufficient to pay their fines and 
 charges. This severity, however, availed but little. 
 The poor Quakers suffered patiently long imprison- 
 ment and slavery, but continued faithful to their 
 testimony against war. 
 
 At Bristol, two young men who had been im- 
 prisoned for refusing to pay these fines were brought 
 up for trial while Thomas Story was there; the judge 
 accusing the prisoners of obstinacy and inconsistency, 
 
THOMAS S T 0 R Y. 
 
 Ill 
 
 in refusing to pay their fines, while they were in the 
 habit of paying without any complaint the general pub- 
 lic taxes, which might also be appropriated for military 
 purposes. Our Friend, obtaining permission of the 
 court to speak, stated that, if it was desired to keep 
 only to the business of the court, he would discuss 
 the matter entirely as a legal question; but that 
 if the court intended to charge them as a people with 
 errors in religion, he would give a reason why they 
 should refuse to pay the one tax and not the other; 
 and went on to adduce the example of Christ in pay- 
 ing the tribute-money to Caesar, and then to show 
 the difference between a law directly affecting the 
 person, requiring personal service, and a law that 
 only required a general tax to be applied by the 
 rulers as they saw fit, and therefore did not hold the 
 individual responsible, and that the Friends, as a 
 people, willingly pay such general taxes; yet the 
 kingdom of Christ being not of this world, his ser- 
 vants cannot fight, though they ought to pay taxes 
 according to the example of Christ their head. We 
 have not space in this work, nor do we think it 
 desirable, to follow the journal kept by Thomas Story 
 through all the details of his service in New England. 
 It gives us a constant succession of disputations on 
 various matters of religious belief, he being continu- 
 ally attacked by ministers and others, and never 
 refusing to enter with them into a full and free ex- 
 planation and logical defence of the doctrines of the 
 society ; yet as several of them appear to us to be on 
 
112 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 subjects of the last importance, and to demonstrate 
 the truth of our views in a manner entirely con- 
 clusive and irrefutable, we will offer several selec- 
 tions. At Sandwich, where he had held a meet- 
 ing, and was afterward called upon for a more full 
 explanation of some assertions made in the meet- 
 ing, he goes into an analysis of the doctrines of per- 
 fection and regeneration as follows : — 
 
 "Having had some conference with Captain Basset, 
 one of the justices of the peace of that place, as above 
 hinted, a Friend told him that I purposed to call at 
 his house on the 24th, — which I accordingly did, 
 where I found assembled a great many Friends and 
 others ; for, my intention of calling being known, they 
 on both sides expected a dispute, of which I had no 
 apprehension. Soon after we had entered the cap- 
 tain's house, he made a short speech to me, in the 
 audience of as many as could throng into the room, 
 to this purpose, viz. : f Sir, you told me, upon your 
 last conference, that you would be glad to see some 
 of the more moderate sort of our magistrates and 
 ministers, and to discourse with them on religious 
 subjects : here are several of our magistrates present/ 
 (pointing to them,) ' and this gentleman/ (pointing 
 to one in the room,) 'is our teacher.' 
 
 " To this I answered by giving them a relation 
 upon what subjects the captain and I had been dis- 
 coursing, and that what 1 said concerning their 
 magistrates and ministers was with respect to them 
 at large in the Province, and not in that place only, 
 
THOMAS ST 0 R Y. 
 
 113 
 
 my inclination being to persuade them to more 
 moderation concerning our Friends, now in the time 
 of war, and to give them a more distinct knowledge 
 of our principles than I perceived they hitherto had. 
 However, seeing so many people had heard already 
 what subjects the captain and I had been upon, I was 
 willing we should resume them in their audience. 
 And upon my mentioning that point of freedom from 
 sin in this life, their minister answered that ( it is the 
 duty of every true Christian to aspire after freedom 
 from sin in this life.' 
 
 " I replied ' that, seeing he acknowledged that to 
 be a duty, he must, of consequence, own it possible ; 
 and that therefore there was no need to say any more 
 about it.' 
 
 "To this he replied, 'It is said, "Ye shall be holy, 
 for I the Lord your God am holy and yet who will 
 presume to say he is as holy as God V Then said I, 
 ' The Scripture saith, "Sanctify yourselves, therefore, 
 and be ye holy; for I am the Lord your God. And 
 ye shall keep my statutes, and do them : I am the 
 Lord which sanctify you." Seeing therefore it is the 
 Lord who sanctifies, his work is perfect, he doth it 
 fully ; and what God hath sanctified let no man call 
 common or unclean. And God's people, who are so 
 indeed, are a holy people; as it is written, "For thou 
 art a holy people unto the Lord thy God : the Lord 
 thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto 
 himself, above all people that are upon the face of 
 the earth. The Lord did not set his love upon you, 
 10* 
 
114 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 nor choose you, because ye were more in number than 
 any people, for ye were the fewest of all people j but 
 because the Lord loved you," ' &c. 
 
 "I added, further, 'that we spake not of degrees 
 of holiness, as comparing man with God therein, 
 otherwise than the Lord himself hath done. But as 
 God is absolutely perfect, and infinite in all essential 
 attributes, moral and divine, so there is a holiness 
 applicable to man as a perfect creature of God : "For 
 in the beginning God created man in his own image, 
 in righteousness and true holiness;" and yet we do 
 not say that man was equal therein to God. Even 
 so man may be truly restored by God, through 
 Christ, to the same holiness, and may and ought to 
 confess it, to the honor of God, without any presump- 
 tion y seeing that since the fall of man, and before 
 the coming of Christ in the flesh, God hath thus said 
 to his people, " Be ye holy, for I am holy j" which the 
 Lord would not have said if like holiness with his 
 own had not, through his Word, been attainable by 
 them. And so likewise of God's righteousness, as 
 well as his holiness, where it is said, "Little children, 
 let no man deceive you : He that doeth righteousness, 
 is righteous, even as he is righteous." ' 
 
 "Upon this their minister was silent; but the 
 justices and people being desirous that some other 
 points should be moved and debated, Captain Basset, 
 having great sway among them, proposed that we 
 should adjourn from his house to their meeting-house, 
 where I might, if I could, make out the matter more 
 
T II O M AS S T 0 R Y. 
 
 115 
 
 fully, with what else might occur, before the people. 
 To this the minister was averse; but, the captain 
 being seconded by the rest of the justices, the minis- 
 ter was overruled, and to the meeting-bouse we went, 
 and the people followed us. It was some time before 
 their minister pitched upon a point upon which to 
 oppose us; but at last, notwithstanding what had 
 passed before, he moved this question : — 
 
 " < Whether there be a state of freedom from sin 
 attainable in this life V And I, being willing, as 
 the Lord might enable me, to make our doctrine in 
 that point plain to the people, assumed the affirma- 
 tive, and my opponent assumed the negative. 
 
 "The affirmative being mine, I was to prove it, 
 and accordingly began and proceeded after the man- 
 ner of the Apostles Paul and John; first to prove 
 that all men commonly sin in this life in a state of 
 nature, or are liable thereto by temptation ; and then 
 that the offers of salvation are made by God the 
 Father unto all mankind in Christ the Son of God, 
 and that whosoever does accept of those offers in 
 God's way and time may not only be saved at last, 
 but freed from sin in the present world. 
 
 " The Apostle Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans, 
 proves the Gentiles, of whose lineage are all nations, 
 the Jews excepted, to be sinners, by breaking the law 
 of God written in their hearts, whereby they became 
 conscious of sin and guilty before God. And the 
 Jews likewise, according to the Psalms of David, 
 where it is written concerning them, 1 There is none 
 
116 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 righteous, no, not one : there is none that doeth good, 
 no, not one.' And again, 1 God hath concluded thein 
 all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.' 
 And again, ' The Scripture hath concluded all under 
 sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might 
 be given to them that believe.' 
 
 " The apostle having thus proved all to be sinners, 
 both Jews and Gentiles, he proceeds to preach salva- 
 tion to all by the Lord Jesus Christ, saying, ' Being 
 justified freely by his grace, (which hath appeared 
 unto all men,) through the redemption which is in 
 Jesus Christ j whom God hath set forth to be a pro- 
 pitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his 
 righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, 
 through the forbearance of God.' Which faith must 
 be obtained in this life, or never. 
 
 " The same apostle, in another place, proceeds to 
 set forth freedom from sin in this life, likewise, by 
 the same Saviour, saying, ' As by the offence of one 
 judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even 
 so by the righteousness of one the free gift came 
 upon all men unto justification of life/ This free 
 gift is ' the grace of God, which bringeth salvation, 
 and hath appeared to all men, teaching us [especially 
 all who believe therein] that, denying ungodliness 
 and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, 
 and godly in this present world.' That, 1 where sin 
 once abounded, grace might much more abound; 
 that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might 
 grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life, 
 
THOMAS STORY. 
 
 in 
 
 by Jesus Christ our Lord. What shall we say, theu ? 
 Shall we contiuue in sin, that grace may abound ? 
 God forbid. How shall we, who are dead unto sin, 
 live any longer therein ? Knowiug this, that our old 
 man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might 
 be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve 
 sin. Knowiug that Christ, being raised from the 
 dead, dieth no more j death hath no more dominion 
 over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin 
 once j but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. 
 Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed 
 unto sin, but alive unto God, through Jesus Christ 
 our Lord. Being then made free from sin, ye became 
 the servants of righteousness ; for when ye were the 
 servants of sin ye were free from righteousness j but 
 now, beiug made free from sin, and become servants 
 to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end 
 everlasting life.' Again, after this apostle had brought 
 this doctrine of freedom from sin in this life to a 
 period, under the similitude of the death and resur- 
 rection of Christ, and thereby established the cer- 
 tainty of it, he resumes the same doctrine in the 
 beginning of the seventh chapter, under another 
 similitude, and brings it to the like conclusion : — ' For 
 when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins [or 
 passions] which were [discovered] by the law did 
 work in our members, to bring forth fruit unto death; 
 but now we are delivered from the law, that being 
 dead [or being dead to that] wherein we were held, 
 that we should serve [God] in newness of spirit, and 
 
118 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 not in the oldness of the letter ; that ye should be 
 married to another, even to him who is raised from 
 the dead, [who is without sin,] that we should bring 
 forth fruit unto God/ They being dead unto sin, 
 and the carnal mind, which is enmity against God, 
 in which (a state of nature,) they had been held, they 
 then became as pure virgins, espoused unto him who 
 had died for them in pure and matchless love, who 
 cannot be joined to any unclean thing, in the new 
 covenant of everlasting love, light, and life eternal, 
 that they by him might bring forth fruit unto God, 
 which is holiness, righteousness, truth, and peace, and 
 not sin or evil. 
 
 "And a third time the apostle proceeds, and insists 
 upon the same doctrine, and finally established it 
 unalterably the same way : first, setting forth the 
 power of sin in the flesh, notwithstanding the moral 
 precepts of the law, which prove insufficient until we 
 come unto Christ, or until his power be inwardly 
 revealed, by whom alone full freedom and deliverance 
 from sin in this life, and eternal salvation from the 
 wages thereof in another world, are come. The 
 apostle, speaking concerning himself and the church 
 of Christ at that time, and the state they had been in 
 before they believed in him, saith, ' When we were 
 in the flesh, the motions of sins did work in our 
 members/ as above. The knowledge of sin comes by 
 the law. Sin brings spiritual death, and, being dis- 
 covered by the commandment, becomes exceeding 
 sinful. The law is spiritual; but man, in his natural 
 
THOMAS STORY. 
 
 119 
 
 and fallen state, is carnal, a slave to his own corrup- 
 tions, lusts, and sins j for though the law, which is 
 light, and the commandment, which is as a burning 
 lamp, discovers to man his duty, what he ought to 
 do, and leave undone, yet, through the weakness of 
 nature in its fallen state, and the suggestions of the 
 evil one in the imaginations and carnal mind, (no 
 good thing being in the flesh,) the apostle and others 
 under the law were held captive, and under a long 
 and hard struggle for liberty and victory, but could 
 not obtain it by all the legal precepts, or rational 
 assent unto them, or by his own learning or natural 
 powers. He delighted in the law of God in his 
 mind j yet, seeing another law in his members, to be 
 understood as the temptations of the evil one, working 
 in the lusts and corruptions of the carnal mind, 
 warring against the law of his mind, and bringing 
 him into captivity to the law of sin, which was in his 
 members, and seeing no way of deliverance from sin 
 by the law of Moses, he cries out, as it were aloud, 
 under a sense of the whole weight, force, and body 
 of sin, and saith, 1 Ob, wretched man that I am ! who 
 shall deliver me from the body of this death V 
 
 " Now, though the apostle, in all this, speaks as in 
 the first person, setting forth the state he had once 
 been in, or rather the state in which the Jews were 
 who had not believed in Christ, — for this apostle had 
 been, 'touching the righteousness of the law, blame- 
 less,' — yet it is plain that neither the apostle himself, 
 nor the true believers and followers of Christ in that 
 
120 
 
 T> RIFF ME M 0 I R 0 F 
 
 day, were in that state of sin at that time, but re- 
 deemed from it. For instantly after the apostle had 
 thus cried out, < Who shall deliver me from the body 
 of this death V he immediately and most comfortably 
 answers, ' I thank God, through Jesus Christ our 
 Lord/ and adds, 1 There is therefore now no con- 
 demnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who 
 walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit; for the 
 law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made 
 me free from the law of sin and death.' 
 
 " Seeing the apostle speaks of a state of captivity 
 and bondage under the law or power of sin and death 
 in this life, and of a state of redemption and freedom 
 from that law also, in this present world, by Christ, 
 including the apostle himself, and every living mem- 
 ber of the true church, neither he, nor any other of 
 them as such, conld be in those two opposite states at 
 the same time, or in so short a time as he was in 
 writing that part of his epistle ; which, in an ordinary 
 way, might be in less than two hours; but sin being 
 reproved and condemned in them, by the manifesta- 
 tion of the Holy Spirit of Christ, and the righteous- 
 ness of the law fulfilled in them, and they become the 
 sons of God thereby, they were gradually led out of 
 sin into all truth, according to the promise of Christ, 
 whose word is truth, and sure forever unto all who 
 believe, love, and obey him. 
 
 " And also, in another place, this apostle confirms 
 the same doctrine, with respect to the present salva- 
 tion and attainments of the true disciples of Christ 
 
THOMAS STORY. 
 
 121 
 
 in that day, where he saith, 1 For we ourselves also 
 were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving 
 •divers lusts and pleasures, liviDg in malice and envy, 
 hateful, and hating one another; but after that the 
 kindness and love of God our Saviour towards man 
 appeared, not by works of righteousness which we 
 have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us, 
 by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the 
 Holy Ghost, which he shed on us abundantly, through 
 Jesus Christ our Saviour;' which must be done in 
 this life, or else there will be no entering the king- 
 dom of God ; for no unclean thing can enter there. 
 
 " The Apostle Paul having thus, in this epistle, 
 fully preached the glorious doctrine of liberty from 
 sin in this life, through Jesus Christ, the Word, Son, 
 Wisdom, and Power of the Father, as he likewise 
 preaches the same in divers others of his epistles, not 
 necessary to be mentioned at this time, I proceed to 
 prove the same doctrine, by the authority and testi- 
 mony of the Apostle John, who preached it after the 
 same manner, — that it may be established from the 
 mouths of two so great and faithful witnesses. 
 
 " 1st. That all have sinned and wanted salvation, 
 •idly. That Christ died for all mankind. And 3dly. 
 That all who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and 
 follow him in the regeneration, are not only freed 
 from all sin in this life, but eternally saved in that 
 which is to come. 
 
 u In the first place, the apostle reminds the church 
 what was the testimony of the apostles unto them 
 ll 
 
122 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 from the beginning of their preaching the gospel, and 
 the certainty of it, as what they ' had heard, seen, and 
 handled of the Word of Life so that they certainly 
 knew and were witnesses of the truth they delivered 
 to others, ' That God is light, and in him is no dark- 
 ness at all.' 
 
 "In the next place, that they had formerly, in 
 their natural state, been sinners, but, having confessed 
 their sins to the Holy One, who in love and mercy 
 convinceth and reproveth the world of sin, then his 
 faithfulness and justice were made manifest in them, 
 not only in the forgiveness of their sins against his 
 law, but likewise in cleansing them from all the in- 
 ward pollution of sin and unrighteousness. 
 
 " If they had said they had not sinned, they would 
 then have given God the lie, who sent his Son to save 
 them from their sins; but though all have sinned, 
 yet God, in infinite love, mercy, and goodness, hath 
 sent his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, 'to be a pro- 
 pitiation for the sins of the whole world/ thereby 
 declaring his mercy and goodness in him unto all 
 mankind, to be testified in due time. And the sin 
 and condemnation of the world stand in this : — that 
 Christ is come into the world, not only as a man, and 
 lifted up, but also as he is the true light, ' which 
 lighteth every man that cometh into the world j' but 
 the world neither knoweth him, nor believeth in him, 
 (as that light,) nor loveth him, but men rather love 
 themselves, and darkness, wherein to act their own 
 will and hide from themselves their own evil deeds. 
 
THOMAS STORY. 
 
 123 
 
 "And although this divine eternal light reproveth 
 and condemneth all sin and evil in mankind, yet 
 faith therein doth not only restore and preserve from 
 final perdition, but hath the promise of life eternal. 
 And on the contrary, he that belie veth not is under 
 present condemnation, not for acts of sin and evil 
 only, but because ' he hath not believed in the name 
 of the only-begotten Son of God.' Thus is faith in 
 the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as he is lifted 
 up and crucified, and likewise as he is the true and 
 divine light, and that faith accompanied and evi- 
 denced by good works, necessary and effectual for the 
 redemption and present restoration of unbelieving, 
 sinful, polluted mankind from under their present 
 condemnation, and for their preservation unto life 
 eternal. 
 
 "And God the Father, through Jesus Christ the 
 Son, hath given a saving gift of his divine Light, 
 Spirit, Grace, and Truth, which is one and the same, 
 unto all mankind; to lead, direct, and guide them, as 
 an ever-living, infallible Teacher unto all, that who- 
 soever shall believe therein, and repent of their sins, 
 and obey him in his manifestations in their liearts, 
 minds, and understandings, shall be surely led into 
 all Truth, and consequently out of all untruth and 
 error, which must be in this life, where sin, untruth, 
 and error only are. The cause of such the Lord 
 Jesus will advocate before the Father. 
 
 "And as the knowledge of God and Christ is 
 eternal life, so the evidence of that knowledge is the 
 
124 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 keeping of his commandments, and the love of the 
 brethren. Whoever pretendeth to that knowledge, 
 and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and 
 Christ, who is the Truth, is not in him ; he is a 
 reprobate, and his sins remain upon him, notwith- 
 standing the sufficiency of the propitiation in its own 
 nature and to its general and proper end. But who- 
 soever keepeth his Word, in him is the love of God 
 perfected ; whereby such sanctified souls know not 
 only that their sins are forgiven them, but that they 
 are in him that is true, in whom there is no sin ; and 
 such walk in the way of faithfulness and obedience 
 to the Father in all things, even as Christ himself 
 walked, who never sinned, — which sinless walking 
 must refer to the Christian's conduct in this world, 
 in order to be settled at last in the kingdom of glory, 
 where nothing sinful or unclean, while so, can come. 
 
 "And this apostle clearly distinguisheth three 
 several states and orders in the universal church of 
 Christ at that time ; that is to say, ( Little children, 
 young men, and fathers/ and it hath ever been the 
 same, from that day unto this, and ever will be, to 
 the en*d of the world. He writes first to little chil- 
 dren in Christ, that they should not sin ; for this 
 apostle, as all the rest, having once been such, knew 
 the danger they were in of being enticed by the evil 
 one mysteriously working in their own natural pro- 
 pensities, affections, passions, and desires, even after 
 they had known something of the beginning of the 
 work of Christ, the Word of God, in them ; and yet, 
 
THOMAS STORY. 
 
 125 
 
 if such should sin, he, to preserve thern from despair- 
 ing of the mercy of God, through a consciousness of 
 sin and the accusations of the evil one, remarks the 
 provision which is made for their safety, saying, ' If 
 any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, 
 Jesus Christ the righteous/ Their sins were forgiven 
 them, and they knew the Father. 
 
 " 2dly. The apostle writes unto the young men in 
 Christ, not that they should not sin, they having at- 
 tained a further degree of growth and establishment, 
 but because they were strong through the indwelling 
 of Christ, the Word of God, in them, and had thereby 
 overcome the wicked one; and there was nothing 
 then to lead them into sin, but they were preserved 
 from the sins and evils of the world, through the 
 prayer and intercession of Christ, until they attained 
 a further degree of knowledge of God, and in due 
 time became fathers. 
 
 " 3dly. He wrote unto the fathers of the church, 
 not as to children, that they should not sin, nor as to 
 young men, who were not yet perfect in knowledge, 
 but because they had known him who is from the 
 beginning. They were come to the certain infallible 
 knowledge of God and Christ, as sure as, and more 
 so than, they could know the certainty of auy object 
 knowable by hearing, seeing, or handling thereof. 
 They knew Christ, not only as the Messiah sent of 
 the Father into the world in human nature, but as he 
 is the Word of Life, manifested to them, and in 
 them ; and that was the message of the apostles to 
 11* 
 
126 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 the church (the congregation of God) from the be- 
 ginning of the publication of the gospel, in order to 
 true church-fellowship j that as Christ is the Word 
 of Life from the Father, so God is light, and in him is 
 no darkness at all. And this message was thus 
 declared by the apostles and messengers of Christ to 
 the universal church of God, that they might have 
 fellowship with them whose fellowship was with the 
 Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ, which plainly 
 implies the preseuce of the Father and Son divinely 
 and sensibly in them, and in every true and living 
 member of that holy and saved body, where no sin, 
 uncleanness, or unrighteousness can remain or come. 
 For they who live in sin live in darkness, and are 
 dead unto God while they live in the world ; and 
 when they pretend to fellowship with God and Christ 
 in his church, they lie, and do not the truth, but 
 continue in sin, and have ouly a church and fellow- 
 ship therein of their own inventing and composing, 
 and not of the Lord ; for as the Father and Son are 
 one, a divine and eternal light, in whom there is no 
 darkness, good works are the evidence of true faith 
 in him • and even so, walking and having conversa- 
 tion in and through this present world of darkness, 
 in and by that light, is the true and only test of 
 fellowship with God and Christ, and the universal 
 church of Christ, wherever hidden, dispersed, or 
 visible in the world, — all the members of this holy 
 Christian fellowship having not only all their trans- 
 
THOMAS STORY. 
 
 127 
 
 gressions pardoned, but are also cleansed, by the blood 
 and Spirit of Christ, from all sin. 
 
 "Though I have been long upon this necessary 
 and important doctrine of the apostles of Christ, let 
 your patience bear a little longer, till I add some 
 more texts out of the same epistle of the latter in 
 further confirmation of the same doctrine, where he 
 saith, 'Every man that hath this hope in him [that 
 is, of seeing the Lord as he is] purifieth himself, even 
 as he is pure; and in him is no sin. Whosoever 
 abideth in him sinneth not; whosoever sinneth hath 
 not seen him, neither known him. AVhosoever is 
 born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed 
 remaineth in him, and he cannot sin, because he is 
 born of God.' It is therefore evident that as many 
 as receive the Word of God, by whom the world was 
 made, 'to them he gives power to become the sons 
 of God, even to them that believe on his name, — who 
 are born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor 
 of the will of man, but of God/ 
 
 " Now, I would have the auditory to observe that 
 this epistle of John was written chiefly to preserve 
 the church of God from being seduced from the 
 teachings of Christ, the Word of life, of which they 
 were born, by the* antichrists in those days, who at- 
 tempted to draw them therefrom back into the rites 
 of the law of Moses, effectually ended by the coming 
 and manifestation of Christ the Lord, as appears by 
 these parts of the epistle, where it is said, ' Little 
 children, it is the last time, [or dispensation,] and as 
 
128 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 you have heard that antichrist shall come, even now 
 are there many antichrists ; whereby we know it is 
 the last time. They went out from us, but they were 
 not of us ; for if they had been of us, they would, no 
 doubt, have continued with us; but they went out, 
 that they might be made manifest that they were not 
 all of us j but ye have an unction from the Holy One, 
 and ye know all things.' f These things have I 
 written unto you concerning them that seduce you; 
 but the anointing which ye have received of him 
 abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach 
 you ; but as the same anointing teacheth you of all 
 things, and is truth, and is no lie ; and even as it 
 hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.' 
 
 "And the successors of those antichrists, and their 
 supporters, who have from age to age, even until now, 
 formed and composed unto themselves images and 
 likenesses of religion and worship from mistaken, 
 wrested, and misapplied texts and portions of the 
 Holy Scriptures, intermixed with many inventions and 
 imaginations of their own, and imposed their forgeries, 
 by violence of persecution, upon the church of Christ 
 and mankind, are still, under various names and 
 forms, the chief opposers that Christ and his true 
 ministers and doctrine, which in itself is the same 
 now as then, do meet with in this generation. Those 
 antichrists had once been professors of Christ, and 
 many of them then were, as to his outward coming in 
 the flesh, but had gone out and apostatized from the 
 Spirit of Christ, the holy anointing and divine light 
 
THOMAS STORY. 
 
 129 
 
 of God, and the fellowship of the faithful therein, 
 denying thereby the Lord who bought them, attempt- 
 ing to draw the church of God after themselves and 
 their false teachings, and to establish the rites and 
 righteousness of the law of Moses, in their own erro- 
 neous sense ; together with their own heterodox 
 sentiments concerning the faith of Christ, imposed 
 by persecution and antichristian violence. So it is 
 now, by the same spirit, in like mercenary members, 
 who come in their own names and wills, and not in 
 the name, will, and power of the Lord, and seek and 
 propagate their own interest, honor, power, and glory 
 only, and not the Lord's, nor the good of mankind, 
 but to make a prey and advantage of them unto 
 themselves. 
 
 " These things having passed after this manner, I 
 drew to a conclusion thus : — ' That though by nature, 
 as we are the offspring of the first Adam, we have a 
 seed of evil or sin in us. which springing up, and we, 
 acting according to its motions, being influenced by 
 the evil one, become guilty before God, yet, as we 
 receive and believe in and unite with Christ, the 
 Word of God, the second Adam, the Lord from 
 heaven, the quickening Spirit, and are witnesses 
 of his work in our hearts, we become born of him, 
 that Seed, who never fell, or could fall, children of 
 God, and heirs of his precious promises, partakers 
 of the divine nature, and have present redemption 
 from under the power of sin and Satan/ 
 
 " During all this time, which held above an hour, 
 
130 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 the people were very still, but their minister was fret- 
 ful, and interrupted me often, for he saw what I said 
 took with them j but several of the justices repre- 
 hended him openly divers times, and he was much 
 down and discouraged. 
 
 •''When I had done, he answered that 'there is 
 not a just man upon the earth that doeth good and 
 sinneth not/ and that 1 if we say we have no sin we 
 deceive ourselves j' with some such things in favor 
 of sin, very short, and so sat down. 
 
 " I replied that I had already repeated one of 
 those texts of Scripture, and some others to the same 
 purpose, (for I intended at first to anticipate him in 
 what they usually allege in favor of that pernicious 
 doctrine, of sin term of life,) and that whatsoever was 
 written in the law was to them who were under it. 
 It is true, while men were under that law which 
 gave the knowledge of sin, but did not redeem from 
 it, all these things were true as to them. For the 
 law made nothing perfect ; but the bringing in of a 
 better hope doth ; which hope is ( Christ in us the 
 hope of glory/ the law of the Spirit of life by Christ, 
 which, received and believed in, worketh in us a 
 conformity to the will of God, which the law of Moses 
 could not do, as I have already proved. 
 
 "This opposer was very angry at all this, and 
 several times broke out into opprobrious language, 
 and false charges against us as a people; but several 
 of the magistrates reproved him. Captain Basset, 
 alleging still that the apostle was in that sinful and 
 
THOMAS iTOR Y. 
 
 131 
 
 wretched state when he wrote that epistle, undertook 
 the argument, but advanced nothing new, only the 
 weakness of nature since the fall, and how easily we 
 are prevailed upon to sin. Whereupon I took the 
 Bible again, and showed him iu the same chapter 
 that the apostle speaks only of a state under the 
 law, but was not in that condition himself at that 
 time, in these words : — ' For when we were in the flesh, 
 the motions of sin which were by the law did work 
 in our members to bring forth fruit unto death ; but 
 now we are delivered from the law, that being dead 
 wherein we were held, that we should serve in new- 
 ness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.' 
 Here it is evident that the apostle speaks of two very 
 differing states, — of sin, in which they had once been 
 whilst in the flesh, or carnal mind, and of freedom 
 from sin in the spirit ; and they could not be in those 
 two opposite states at the same time. By the law the 
 power of sin is made manifest, reproved, and con- 
 demned in the mind and understanding; but sin is 
 not thereby, nor can it by any outward law, be 
 subdued and slain, until man believe, repent, re- 
 ceive, follow, and obey the law of the Spirit of life, 
 which not only reproves and condemns for sin, but 
 destroys it. 
 
 u Now, that wherein we are captivated, and held 
 in our first and natural state, is our carnal mind ; 
 which, being ' enmity against God/ neither is nor can 
 be, as such, subject unto his law ; but that enmity 
 being slain and crucified by the cross of Christ, the 
 
132 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 grace and spirit of God, and the body of sin de- 
 stroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin, then 
 the reproving and condemning power of the law 
 ceaseth to work in the soul; for they who are 
 Christ's ( have crucified the flesh, with the affections 
 and lusts.' 
 
 "And though they who are in the flesh cannot 
 please God, yet the apostle, by ' the flesh/ doth not 
 mean the natural body, but the carnal mind ; for he 
 saith, ' But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, 
 if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now, 
 if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none 
 of his.' 
 
 " By this time, the Truth being in some measure 
 over the people, they were generally calm and silent ; 
 and being asked if they were satisfied, they made no 
 reply, only one pettish justice said no j and Captain 
 Basset, being desirous of further dispute, said he 
 could not yet believe that mankind could be freed 
 from sin in this life ; but neither of them assigned 
 any foundation or cause for their unbelief. Then 
 their ministers, taking fresh encouragement from 
 them, blustered out several harsh and false charges 
 and railing accusations against us as a people, which 
 I took in writing, and put him upon his proof, viz. : 
 
 " 1st. That the Quakers hold lying and damnable 
 principles. 
 
 " 2dly. That the Scriptures of the Old and New 
 Testament are the ground of faith and rule of life. 
 "Both which I denied, and nut him upon his 
 
THOMAS ST OB Y. 
 
 133 
 
 proof, which he uudertook, and begaa thus, viz. : — 
 I The words of the charge seem harsh, but I cannot 
 help it : the nature of the thing requires it, and it is 
 not I that bring the charge, but God, upon their own 
 disobedience. For, as it is written, " he that saith, I 
 know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a 
 liar, and the truth is not in him." Xow, our blessed 
 Lord hath commanded, as you will find it written in 
 the 28th chapter of Matthew, at the 10th and 20th 
 verses, u Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, bap- 
 tizing them in the name of the Father, and of the 
 Son, and of the Holy Ghost ; teaching them to ob- 
 serve all things whatsoever I have commanded you : 
 and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of 
 the world." Xow, these people living in the avowed 
 neglect of this great commandment, and yet pretend- 
 ing to know God, and the way of God, they are liars, 
 and the truth is not in them : therefore all sober 
 Christian people ought to beware of them and shun 
 them as deceivers.' 
 
 '•'To this I answered that if by this Scripture he 
 understood water-baptism, as I apprehended he did, 
 he mistook it j for every institution of Christ is plain 
 and explicit, and water not being mentioned there, 
 he must prove it, if he could, some other way. But 
 if it were water-baptism, then he himself, and all of 
 his communion, living in neglect of this command- 
 ment, (as he imagines it to be,) are equally if not 
 more guilty, — not being in the practice of any baptism 
 ever instituted by Christ, or in use in his church in 
 12 
 
134 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 the days of his apostles, or for some hundreds of years 
 after, either as to the manner, instrument, or subjects 
 of baptism. For sprinkling is no baptism, nor are 
 infants the subjects of it; for the words of the text 
 are, ( Teach all nations, baptizing them in [or rather 
 into] the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of 
 the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things 
 whatsoever I have commanded you,' &c. 
 
 " The instrument of baptism here, according to 
 your minister, is water, and the manner of applying 
 it, as is well known, and as the word itself signifies, 
 is by going into the water and washing, particularly 
 the feet, therein. The subjects were not infants, but 
 such as were capable not only of being taught, or 
 made disciples and believers, but likewise of observing 
 and doing all things which Christ had taught his 
 disciples, of which infants are not capable. And if 
 Christ had commanded his disciples to baptize with 
 water, and they had only sprinkled, they had not 
 then obeyed him, but acted another thing in their 
 own wills, and made themselves transgressors. And 
 if Christ had sent his disciples with such a message, 
 as it is plain he did not, what is that to this man, or 
 any such ? Who sent them to do so ? 
 
 " Then the priest replied, and said he did not 
 sprinkle infants. I answered, 'What dost thou, then? 
 Dost thou pour water on their faces off thy hand ? 
 Or dost thou wash their faces with it ? for it seems 
 thou dost not baptize them. If not, thou dost not 
 obey the commandment in thy own sense, if it were 
 
THOMAS STORY 
 
 135 
 
 a command to thee. But this is only a low equivocal 
 evasion.' 
 
 " He replied, * You have no baptism at all ; and 
 the question is not whether we are in the right mode 
 of baptizing, but whether you do, or not, break 
 Christ's command in the neglect of it in any form. 
 And seeing you do neglect it, you are liars, and hold 
 lying principles.' 
 
 " Then, directing my answer to the people, I said, 
 ^ The question on this head is equally applicable, 
 Who is in the right, or who is in the wrong? and 
 not only whether you be in the right mode of water- 
 baptism, but whether you have any at all j and it 
 appears, as above, you have not; and whether that be 
 water-baptism in the text, where water is not men- 
 tioned, as your minister hath suggested, but not 
 proved, and only begged the question, which I have 
 not granted. And whether they who neglect or 
 omit water-baptism be liars, and hold lying prin- 
 ciples. As to us, whom he thus accuseth, we have, 
 through the mercy of God, the true baptism here 
 commanded, which is that of the Spirit, of which 
 this man is no competent judge, being ignorant of 
 that great and saving work of the baptism of the Son 
 of God. I add one question more : — Who sent him, 
 and such as him, either to baptize or sprinkle? It 
 doth not appear that they are sent of Christ j but if 
 he hath sent them to baptize, and they do not so, but 
 only rantize, then they break his command by their 
 own rule; and when they say to a child, "I baptize 
 
136 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 thee," or to others present, " I baptize this child, in 
 the name of the Father, Sou, and Holy Ghost," they 
 then lie in and unto that great name of the Holy 
 One, and before the people, who are yet so blind as 
 not to see they are acting upon false and lying prin- 
 ciples. 
 
 " " The Lord gave a command to his eleven apostles 
 to preach unto, and disciple or baptize, all nations; 
 but what is that to these men now, who assume upon 
 themselves a bare, imperfect, and mistaken imitation 
 of it, in which they send one another with carnal and 
 corrupt views, in both the senders and sent, without 
 any command from God, but from men, who know 
 nothing of the mind of God, nor at all seek it therein, 
 nor have any power from him in what they do ? For 
 a command of that nature to the apostles is none to 
 any one else, unless he be likewise qualified, endued, 
 and sent by the same power. For if this was water- 
 baptism, as it is evident it was not, then it would 
 have been a command and sufhcieut mission to the 
 Apostle Paul, who, though not behind the chief of 
 the other apostles as to any gift or qualification 
 necessary to a gospel minister, and " labored more 
 than they all," assures us that " Christ sent him not 
 to baptize, but to preach the gospel." And as he 
 was in a particular manner the minister of the Gen- 
 tiles, and messenger of the promise of God unto them, 
 to " turn them from darkness unto light, and from the 
 power of Satan unto God," none can succeed him in 
 baptizing with water who had it not by command 
 
THOMAS STORY. 
 
 137 
 
 from Christ himself. And as that great apostle could 
 not justly be accused and stigmatized as a neglecter 
 and breaker of the command of Christ in that case, 
 or a liar and holder of lying principles, when he 
 thanked God he had not proceeded any further than 
 he did in a practice for which he had no command 
 or authority, neither can nor ought we. But being 
 in so good company therein, and having no command 
 from Christ to baptize or sprinkle, or pour on water, 
 or any way at all to use it herein, we cannot honestly 
 be charged with any neglect of it, nor be called liars 
 therefor, nor holders of lying principles j but men of 
 truth, assuming nothing to ourselves but what we 
 have freely received from the Lord, the gift of his 
 grace, in which we minister freely, without money and 
 without price, and therefore all sober Christians ought 
 rather to receive us and our Christian testimony for 
 truth, and to shun the mercenary hirelings of the 
 times, of every form, and beware of those as deceivers 
 who falsely accuse and calumniate us ; for it is written, 
 " He that receiveth you receiveth me ; and he that 
 receiveth me receiveth him that sent me." 
 
 U( Though it is not incumbent upon me to prove 
 that water-baptism was not commanded in that text, 
 but upon your minister, [to prove that it was,] and 
 he hath not done it, yet, for your sakes, and of my 
 friends present, I find my mind engaged to endeavor 
 to make it manifest that it was not water-baptism, but 
 the baptism of the Holy Ghost, — the first being the 
 baptism of John, and the latter of Christ. 
 
 12* 
 
138 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 " 6 John the Baptist was sent of God to preach re- 
 pentance to the Jews, and to baptize them with water, 
 saying that they should believe in one to come after 
 him, whom they did not then know, but that he was 
 among the people, and ready to appear; that he 
 was a baptizer superior to himself, and should baptize 
 them with a more excellent baptism j and that was 
 Christ. John was the servant, and his baptism was 
 with water, and was to decrease, and consequently 
 come to an end ; but Christ is the Son of God, and 
 his baptism is with the Holy Ghost and divine sancti- 
 fying fire, and increaseth and remaineth unto the end 
 of the world ; and as Christ fulfilled all the righteous- 
 ness of the law of Moses in his own person, so like- 
 wise as John's baptism, in point of time, came before 
 his, though he needed no repentance, not having 
 sinned, it was iucumbent upon him to fulfil the 
 righteousness of that dispensation likewise; and 
 therefore he was baptized of John, as others were. 
 Thus, concentring in himself all the righteousness 
 of the typical dispensations of God, he became from 
 thenceforth the sole Dispenser of righteousness unto 
 all nations and people, throughout all generations, 
 unto the end of the world, and he himself is that 
 essential righteousness in his own nature. And 
 therefore, as soon as he had fulfilled all that right- 
 eousness, he began to be made manifest, and to preach 
 repentance to the Jews, as John did, that being most 
 necessary to their sinful state, declaring the kiugdom 
 of God to be at hand to that people J for he was not 
 
THOMAS STORY. 
 
 139 
 
 sent at that time, nor in that manner, to the Gentiles j 
 and, calling disciples, he sent them forth among the 
 Jews, declaring him to be the Messiah, and preaching 
 in his name the same doctrine, and baptizing with 
 the same baptism, as to the mode and instrument of 
 it, but with this distinction as to the application and 
 end of it : John with water unto repentance, not in 
 any name declared, but in him who was to come 
 after; but the disciples of Christ preached the same 
 doctrine, and baptized with the same baptism, but in 
 the name of the Lord Jesus as the true object of 
 faith, declaring him to be the Messiah, of whom 
 Moses and the prophets wrote, now already come and 
 made manifest, not unto repentance only, but for the 
 remission of sins repented of, in the name of him who 
 was shortly to be offered up unto God, a propitiation 
 for the sins of the whole world. 
 
 " 'And it is said that Jesus made and baptized more 
 disciples than John, } T et he did not baptize any in his 
 own person : that was below the dispensation John 
 had ascribed unto him, which is a dispensation of 
 eternal substance of light, life, virtue, and power, and 
 not of shadows or symbols. 
 
 " ' The apostles and disciples of Christ being thus in 
 the practice of water-baptism, and other services of 
 that day, the Lord, when they were able to bear it, 
 plainly told them who he was, — that is, the Way, the 
 Truth, and the Life, — and foretold them of his suffer- 
 ing a little before it came to pass - } of his departure 
 from them ; that he must go away as to his bodily 
 
140 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 presence, but should come again in Spirit, by which 
 he should be in them as their Comforter; and this 
 promise he made in the Father's name, which was to 
 come to pass as the effect of his own prayer and 
 intercession. 
 
 "'And, accordingly, after he had suffered, and 
 finished his testimony on earth, and was risen from 
 the dead, he appeared to his disciples and gave them 
 several infallible proofs of it. And the apostles being 
 present with him in a place appointed a little before 
 he ascended into heaven, he said unto them, " All 
 power is given unto me in heaven and in earth, and 
 repentance and remission of sins must be preached in 
 my name unto all nations, beginning at Jerusalem ; 
 and ye shall be witnesses unto me, both in J erusalem, 
 and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the utter- 
 most part of the earth. " "Go ye, therefore, teach all 
 nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, 
 and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them 
 to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded 
 you." "And lo, I am with you always, even unto the 
 end of the world." "Go ye into all the world, and 
 preach the gospel to every creature : he that believeth, 
 and is baptized, shall be saved, but he that believeth 
 not shall be damned." " And behold, I send the 
 promise of my Father upon you. But tarry ye in 
 the city of Jerusalem until ye be endued with power 
 from on high." " But ye shall receive power after 
 that the Holy Ghost is come upon you." " For John 
 
THOMAS S T O R Y. 
 
 141 
 
 truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized 
 with the Holy Ghost not many days hence." 
 
 u ' Here their mission and work were greatly en- 
 larged : before, they, as well as himself, were con- 
 fined to the Jews only, until he had finished his tes- 
 timony unto them on earth; but now they are sent 
 to all nations under heaven. They had been before 
 baptized with John's water-baptism, and they had 
 baptized many in the name of the Lord, without any 
 other power from on high, with the same baptism ; 
 but now they themselves were to be baptized with a 
 more excellent baptism, foretold by John, — the bap- 
 tism of Christ, which was with the Holy Ghost, a 
 divine, holy, soul-cleansing fire ; and then, and not 
 before, they were to go out in that glorious, wonder- 
 ful, and powerful name. For after the Lord had 
 given them this command, to go and teach all 
 nations, baptizing them, &c, he restrained them by 
 a subsequent order from going by virtue of that com- 
 mand only, until they were actually endued with 
 power from the Father, saying, u But ye shall receive 
 power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon 3 7 ou; 
 for John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be 
 baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence. " 
 It is clear that the Lord Christ spake all these things 
 at the same time to his apostles, with plain connec- 
 tion, very intelligible to any unprejudiced under- 
 standing, fhough they are dispersed in the Scriptures, 
 and some part recorded by one Evangelist and some 
 by another, and not entirely by any one of them. He 
 
142 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 distinguished between the baptism of John with 
 water, then in practice and shortly to be superseded 
 and cease in point of obligation, and the baptism of 
 Christ himself by the Spirit, which, as it is the gospel 
 baptism and dispensation, was not then commenced, 
 nor could be, until Christ ascended and was glorified 
 with the same glory that he had with the Father 
 before the world was made. The Lord Christ doth 
 not mention, in all this, any other water-baptism but 
 that of John, in distinction to the baptism of the 
 Spirit, which he establisheth alone, as his permanent, 
 necessary, and saving baptism to the end of the world. 
 Nor is it at all probable that Christ would institute 
 water-baptism, which they were already in the prac- 
 tice of, by his own authority and countenance, that 
 bad its time and use already, and not so much as 
 name water in the words of the institution, but by 
 way of contradistinction and precaution, lest they 
 should so far mistake in so great and necessary a 
 point as to think he instituted another water-bap- 
 tism. And though they were apostles of Christ, and 
 had received some degree of the Spirit, and were 
 thereby sanctified, so far as to be fitted for the ser- 
 vices to which they had been hitherto called, yet they 
 were not at this time so thoroughly converted, or 
 their understandings so far opened, as to know either 
 the nature of this baptism or the extent of their 
 commission therein. For worldly views had prepos- 
 sessed their minds and misguided their judgments 
 for the present, until the Holy Ghost came and was 
 
THOMAS STOR Y. 
 
 143 
 
 manifested in them, by his own divine and powerful 
 influence and work ; for to all that Christ said to 
 them on that subject they answered like men deeply 
 prepossessed with views and sentiments of Christ and 
 his kingdom, quite contrary to the nature of it and 
 the Truth, — after a carnal manner saying, "Lord, 
 wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom of 
 Israel ?" 
 
 u ' It is not to be admired, therefore, that none of 
 them understood Christ, either as to the nature or 
 extent of their mission, at that time, until Peter was 
 sent to the house of Cornelius, who was a Gentile, 
 — which was about eight years after this command. 
 Till then, notwithstanding the plain, intelligible words 
 of Christ, they still thought salvation was confined 
 unto themselves, the Jews only, until Christ himself 
 demonstrated the contrary by matter of fact, in bap- 
 tizing Cornelius and his household with the Holy 
 Ghost by the ministry of Peter; and then his under- 
 standing was opened and enlarged, and the rest like- 
 wise, who had yet remained ignorant, were, by his 
 relation of the circumstances of the whole matter, 
 convinced, both as to the nature and extent of their 
 commission, that it is a spiritual baptism and dispen- 
 sation, wherein salvation is offered, through Christ, 
 unto all nations and ages, to the end of the world. 
 
 " ' But though the Spirit of Christ leadeth those 
 who believe and follow him into all Truth, yet not all 
 at once, but as we poor, low, weak mortals are made 
 able to bear, from one degree of convincement, illu- 
 
BRIEF MEMOIR 0 F 
 
 initiation, sanctification, understanding, experience, 
 and knowledge, to another, under the conduct of the 
 Spirit, until we arrive at as great perfection as our 
 nature is capable of in this present world, which is 
 no small degree, in order to be completely fitted for a 
 far greater glory, and full establishment, in a more 
 excellent world to come, in life everlasting/ 
 
 " The priest gave many unmannerly interruptions 
 during this time, but was sometimes reproved by the 
 justices, especially by Captain Basset, who had great 
 sway, though one of the youngest men among them, 
 but of good temper and understanding. His reasons 
 for interrupting me, he said, were these: — ' That if 
 he did not answer things as they were moved, he 
 would forget great part of them, and so they might 
 pass unanswered and take with the people.' How- 
 ever, I came at length to inform the people how this 
 error of sprinkling came to take place in New Eng- 
 land, viz., 'by the coming over of some of the 
 ancient Puritans, Independents, and Presbyterians 
 into that country, not then in that point fully re- 
 formed from the church of Rome, the original main- 
 tainer of that pernicious error, by whom it was con- 
 tinued. And, seeing sprinkling is no baptism, you 
 have none at all, but an old invention and relic of the 
 church of Ptome. Wherefore I exhort you to believe 
 in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, that you 
 may be baptized of him, and saved, since he himself 
 hafh said, as on holy record, " He that believeth and 
 
T HOMAS S T 0 11 Y. 
 
 145 
 
 is baptized shall be saved ; but he that behcveth not 
 shall be damned. " ' 
 
 " The priest stormed much at this, saying to a 
 Friend, as I was speaking, ' See how smooth he goes 
 and makes all look as even as he pleases : let him 
 alone, and the people will take all this for granted 
 and then arose violently from his seat and interrupted 
 me, so that I could not finish that part as I intended. 
 And yet I thought much of what I had said remained 
 with the more intelligent sort of the people. 
 
 " To all this my opponent made no reply, but began 
 to maintain his charge as well as he could, ' that the 
 Scriptures of the Old and New Testament are the 
 ground of faith and rule of life.' He attempted first 
 to prove that the Scriptures are the Word of God, 
 and that as such they are the ground of faith and rule 
 of life, thus : — ' Christ, reproving the Scribes and 
 Pharisees concerning their traditions, told them 
 "they had made the Word of God of none effect 
 thereby;" and seeing he here expressly calls the 
 Scriptures the Word of God, consequently they must 
 be the ground of faith and rule of life.' 
 
 "To which I answered, 1 That the particular sub- 
 ject there treated of is the fifth commandment, not 
 the Scriptures, where the Lord Christ chargeth them 
 with laying aside the commandment of God and 
 giving contrary commandments of their own, reject- 
 ing the commandment of God, that they might keep 
 their own tradition. So that what is called the Word 
 of God in the loth verse of that chapter is the fiftjj 
 
146 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 commandment, and not the Scriptures. And the 
 Evangelist Matthew, writing of the same passage, calls 
 it the commandment all along throughout the chap- 
 ter, and never calls it the Word of God; nor doth 
 the Scripture anywhere call itself the Word of God, 
 but gives that title justly and properly to Christ, in 
 his spiritual appearance, both in the Old and New 
 Testament; first in the Old, where it is written, "For 
 this commandment, which I command thee this day, 
 it is not hidden from- thee, neither is it far off, &c, 
 but the Word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, 
 and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it." 
 
 "'This was not any of the ten commandments 
 written on tables of stone, though indeed the root of 
 all the commandments of God, nor was there much 
 of the Scripture then written ; but this was the Spirit 
 of Christ before his incarnation, of whom Peter tes- 
 tifies that he was in the prophets, and testified 
 beforehand his sufferings, in the flesh, and that many 
 hundred years before his manifestation therein, and 
 the glory that should follow ; of whom the Apostle 
 Paul likewise bears testimony, in these words : — " The 
 righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise : 
 Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven ? 
 [that is, to bring Christ down from above,] or, Who 
 shall descend into the deep ? [that is, to bring up 
 Christ again from the dead :] but what saith it ? The 
 Word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy 
 heart; that is the Word of faith which we preach." 
 And the word " we," in this place, shows that it was 
 
THOMAS S T O It Y. 
 
 147 
 
 not the testimony of that apostle only, but likewise 
 of all the rest of the apostles and ministers of Christ 
 in that day, that Christ himself is the only Word of 
 the Father, and there is not another. 
 
 " 'Again, the Evangelist John testifies of Christ 
 after this manner : — " In the beginning was the "Word, 
 and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 
 All things were made by him, and without him was 
 not any thing made that was made. He was in the 
 world, and the world was made by him, and the world 
 knew him not. And the Word was made flesh, and 
 dwelt among us," &c. Now, these things cannot be 
 truly, or with any sense, said of the Scriptures; for 
 the Spirit of Christ is not the Scriptures, though they 
 testify of him. The Scriptures never ascended into 
 heaven, neither did they descend into the deep and 
 rise again j neither are the Scriptures the Word of 
 faith j neither were they in the beginning, nor are 
 they God, nor was any thing at all made by them. 
 But all things were made some thousands of years 
 before there were any Scriptures in the world, which 
 was not (any now extant) until the days of Moses, 
 who wrote but a small part of them. Nor does the 
 world now know God, or the Word of God, by the 
 Scriptures; nor were they ever made flesh. They 
 are not, therefore, the Word of God, and consequently 
 not that rule, by your minister's own way of reason- 
 ing ; but, as the Apostle Peter testifies, "That no 
 prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpre- 
 tation ; for the prophecy came not in old time by the 
 
148 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 will of man ; but holy men of God spake as they were 
 moved by the Holy Ghost." 
 
 "'And concerning those Scriptures which Peter 
 speaks of, the Scriptures of the New Testament not 
 being then written, the Lord Jesus said to the Jews, 
 who had them, though they did not understand them 
 or know him by them, " Ye have not his [the 
 Father's] word abiding in you; for whom he hath 
 sent, him ye believe not. Search the Scriptures \ for 
 in them ye think ye have eternal life ; and they are 
 they which testify of me ; and ye will not come to 
 me that ye may have life." Here Christ, the Word 
 of God, is again distinguished from the Scriptures: 
 they are not that Word, but bear testimony of him ; 
 and so do the Scriptures of both Testaments still, and 
 will through ages to come. But I beseech you to 
 beware lest, while you seem to magnify the Scrip- 
 tures, as the Jews did, you likewise fall into the like 
 errors, and they become of none effect also unto you, 
 through your own vain inventions and traditions, and 
 fall short of eternal life, as they did, through a wilful 
 neglect of the manifestations, admonitions, and opera- 
 tions of the Spirit of Christ, the Word of God, in 
 your own hearts, — the grace of God given unto you, 
 in you, as a fre« and constant teacher in the way of 
 truth and salvation j and lest you be found of the 
 number of those at last of whom it is prophesied, in 
 the Holy Scriptures, " The time will come when they 
 will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own 
 lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having 
 
THOMAS S T 0 H Y. 
 
 1-49 
 
 itchiug ears; and they shall turn away their ears 
 from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. " ' 
 
 u Then I said to the people, ' I was willing to carry 
 the subject and argument this length for your infor- 
 mation, because I fully desire the welfare and salva- 
 tion of every one of you ; but your teacher unaware 
 gave up his own cause in his own way of reasoning. 
 For, upon a wrong supposition that the Scripture is 
 the Word of God, he grounded his position, that it 
 is the ground of faith and rule of life ; whereas the 
 Scripture itself saith, < k Faith is the gift of God," and 
 consequently not acquired by reading or hearing the 
 Scriptures, which the Jews had, and highly esteemed, 
 as much as you can do, and yet did. not believe in 
 Christ, the Saviour of the world. 
 
 "'I shall now invert this assertion, and establish 
 the point contrary to his doctrine, in a few words, and 
 say that what, or whoever, is the Word of God, the 
 same is the ground of faith and rule of life. But 
 the Lord Jesus Christ, aud not the Scriptures, is the 
 Word of God, in whom dwells all the fulness of the 
 Godhead substantially. He is the wisdom aud power 
 of the Father, and therefore is the ground of faith, 
 the faith of the operation of God by him, and the 
 rule and ruler of that life of which himself is the 
 author and giver.' 
 
 " Then I informed the people that we ever had 
 a great esteem for the Scriptures, believing them to 
 be given by divine inspiration, (the priest having, in 
 our discourse, urged that passage where it is said. 
 13* 
 
150 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 'The Scripture is able to make you wise unto salva- 
 tion/ leaving out. ' through faith which is in Christ 
 Jesus/ which is the main point,) but they make wise 
 unto salvation only through faith in Christ, so that 
 faith must go before; and the apostles believed before 
 their understandings were opened to know the Scrip- 
 tures." 
 
 At this period the Indians were extremely hostile 
 to the whites, who were greatly alarmed, and our 
 Friend, on reaching Salisbury, (where several persons 
 had recently been killed,) found that most of the 
 people in the neighborhood had brought their families 
 into the town, to be under the protection of the gar- 
 rison. He, however, trusting in divine protection 
 rather than in man, felt it his duty to lodge at the 
 house of one Henry Dow, which was situated in a 
 position of great apparent danger, being close to the 
 forest and at a considerable distance from the fort. 
 Henry Dow's mother-in-law, who resided in the house 
 with them, alarmed at the remoteness of their situa- 
 tion, had frequently urged them to remove into the 
 town where the garrison was, for greater safety ; but 
 her daughter, trusting in the divine protection, could 
 not for a long time consent to this, fearing that, if 
 they should give way to distrust and fear, some evil 
 woulfl certainly overtake them. Finally, overpersuaded 
 by her mother, she yielded, and removed to the town, 
 where she was in constant fear of Indians, which at 
 home she had been entirely free from ; and, what was 
 most remarkable, the mother, having left some small 
 
THOMAS STORY. 
 
 151 
 
 matters at the house near the forest, returned there 
 to bring them thence, and was killed by some Indians 
 who were lying in ambush near the town j and on 
 the same day two young Friends going to their work 
 near the town, one of them carrying a gun, and the 
 other unarmed, were attacked, and he that carried 
 the gun was killed, while the other was unmolested. 
 These instances, like, many similar ones related by 
 our early Frieuds, go clearly to prove that if men are 
 faithful and sincerely give up themselves and all that 
 they have to the divine keeping, they need not in 
 any case resort to arms, even in self-defence, but are 
 safe and fearless in the midst of danger. 
 
 Thomas Story was much concerned during this state 
 of affairs about the appointing of meetings at distant 
 places in the woods, lest any should be slain whilst 
 going to attend them, and fearful that blame might be 
 cast upon himself as accessory to it, and on the cause 
 of Truth ; but, waiting on the Lord, the way was made 
 clear before him, and all fear and doubt vanished, so 
 that he was encouraged to go straight forward in his 
 work. Among other discourses which he has pre- 
 served in his journal of this visit to New England is 
 a reply to a certain Baptist who pleaded to him the 
 necessity of the temporal sword in general, and of its 
 use being allowable even under the gospel dispensa- 
 tion, on the ground of its being unavoidable for the 
 restraint of robbers, murderers, and such criminals 
 who resisted the civil authority, and also for the 
 defence of nations unjustly invaded. Though this 
 
152 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 plea is a strong one, we think Thomas Story has fully 
 defended the views of the society of Friends on that 
 subject in the following remarks : — 
 
 " To this I answered, ' That the sword there men- 
 tioned is not, as I apprehend, the sword of destruc- 
 tion, nation against nation, nor the necessity of the 
 use of such a sword in the civil state, but rather the 
 sword of civil justice in execution of civil, temporal, 
 and righteous laws, whereby the civil magistrate is, 
 or ought to be, " a terror to the evil-doer," and a safe- 
 guard "and praise to them that do well." 
 
 " He replied, < That if force by arms were not to be 
 used in apprehending thieves, robbers, and the like, 
 they would not submit to be apprehended and 
 brought to justice, but go on by force to do those 
 mischiefs. 7 
 
 " To this I replied, { That, magistracy being God's 
 ordinance to that and other good and salutary ends, 
 the countenance of God is with the civil officer in his 
 just prosecution and execution of his office ; and the 
 Almighty, having power over all spirits, for the most 
 part strikes a terror into evil-doers when they are 
 discovered and accused, so that it is very rare that 
 any such resist the powers by force, but by stealth 
 only. However, force may be allowed in this case, in 
 the hand of a proper officer, whose business and duty 
 it is to apprehend and bring to justice furious and 
 incorrigible transgressors of the righteous laws and 
 ordinances of men for the just rule of countries and 
 nations. But here I must distinguish between the 
 
THOMAS STORY. 
 
 153 
 
 kingdom of Christ and the kingdoms of this world, in 
 order to bring this matter to a right understanding 
 and period. The Lord, by several of his prophets, 
 hath foretold that " he shall judge among many people, 
 and rebuke strong nations afar oif; and they shall 
 beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears 
 into pruning-hooks : nation shall not lift up sword 
 against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." 
 This is to come to pass under the new covenant, of 
 which Christ the Son of God is Mediator, whose doc- 
 trine tends to the fulfilling of it in all who believe 
 and obey the gospel. For he saith, u Ye have heard 
 that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor 
 and hate thine enemy; but I say unto you, Love 
 your enemies, bless them that curse you, and do good 
 to them that hate you, and pray for them who despite- 
 fully use you and persecute you;" and that we should 
 not be angry without a cause, nor lust.' He preached 
 perfection, which being accomplished in the heart by 
 the holy powerful spirit of him who preached this doc- 
 trine, all lust is taken away and destroyed, whether 
 it be the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, of vain- 
 glory, of power, domination, self-exaltation, covetous- 
 ness, the lust of envy, revenge, pre-eminence, and 
 the like, which are the ground and cause of wars and 
 fightings among carnal men, as saith the Apostle 
 James : — " From whence come wars and fightings 
 among you ? Come they not from hence, even from 
 your lusts that war in your members? Ye lust and 
 have not; ye kill and desire to have, and cannot 
 
154 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 obtain ; ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because 
 ye ask not. Ye ask and receive not, because ye ask 
 amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts : ye 
 adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the 
 friendship of the world is enmity with God?" Xow, 
 though the kings and kingdoms of this world maybe 
 at war, and do and will make war one against another 
 for a time, until the kingdom of Christ shall prevail 
 over all, yet the kingdom of Christ is not of this 
 world, as he said unto Pilate : — " If my kingdom were 
 of this world, then would my servants fight, that I 
 should not be delivered to the Jews ; but now is my 
 kingdom not from hence." ' 
 
 u . To this he answered, i It was only at that 
 time that they would not fight ; for if they had fought 
 he had not been delivered to the Jews to be crucified, 
 and so his death and all the advantages of it to man- 
 kind hindered; but upon any other just occasion 
 they might, and still may, fight/ 
 
 " To this I replied, i That this interpretation, or 
 rather perversion, of the Scripture would destroy the 
 kingdom of Christ in the nature, infancy, and end of 
 it, — denying Christ to have a kingdom on earth, but 
 only during his bodily presence with his disciples, — 
 and would obstruct the way for accomplishing the 
 prophecies of the prophets before mentioned, and 
 oppose the whole tenor and end of the gospel. For 
 the proclamation of the celestial harbingers of the 
 Prince of peace, in notifying the birth of the first-born 
 into the world, for the salvation, not destruction, of 
 
THOMAS S T 0 It Y. 
 
 155 
 
 tire lives of mankind, was after this manner : — "Glory 
 to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will 
 towards men." And as he was sent into the world 
 in the love of the Father, so the whole tenor of his 
 doctrine and example of life was for peace and love; 
 and in that love, and the power and divine virtue of 
 it, he yielded up his life and body on the cross, an 
 adequate propitiation for the sins of the whole world, 
 and to declare the mercy of God to all mankind. 
 And it is evident that the Jews crucified Christ in 
 defence and support of this same political principle 
 and doctrine of self-defence by war and fighting, for 
 the preservation of their state against the Romans, 
 though their policy proved their utter ruin in the 
 sequel. For, said they, after Christ had raised 
 Lazarus from the dead, "What do we? For this 
 man doth many miracles : if we let him thus alone, 
 all men will believe on him, and the Romans shall 
 come and take away both our place and nation." 
 This plainly demonstrates that the disciples and fol- 
 lowers of Christ were not of fighting-principles, but 
 otherwise taught by him to love even their enemies ; 
 and his whole doctrine tended to mercy, peace, truth, 
 and love. And the apostle saith concerning the 
 members and subjects of the kingdom of Christ in 
 this world, " For, though we walk in the flesh, we do 
 not war after the flesh ; for the weapons of our war- 
 fare are not carnal, but mighty through God, to the 
 pulling down of strongholds, casting down imagina- 
 tions, [or reasonings,] and every high thing which 
 
156 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and 
 bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience 
 of Christ." 
 
 " 'Again : " Finally, my brethren, be strong in the 
 Lord, and in the power of his might j put on the 
 whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand 
 against the wiles of the devil; for we wrestle not 
 against flesh and blood, but against principalities, 
 against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of 
 this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places : 
 wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God, 
 that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, 
 and, having done [or overcome] all, to stand. Stand, 
 therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, 
 and having on the breastplate of righteousness, and 
 your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of 
 peace; above all, taking the shield of faith, where- 
 with ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of 
 the wicked ; and take the helmet of salvation, and 
 the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God \ 
 praying always with all prayer and supplication in 
 the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseve- 
 rance, and supplication for all saints." 
 
 " 'As the kingdom of Christ is not of this world, he 
 governs by his Holy Spirit, in such as are not of this 
 world, but are given him out of the world, — over 
 whom, in all ages, he hath ruled in righteousness, 
 peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost, and shall yet 
 reign, till by degrees the "kingdoms of this world 
 shall all become the kimrdoms of our God and his 
 
THOMAS STORY. 
 
 157 
 
 Christ." Then shall be an end of all rule and do- 
 minion but that of God and the Lord Jesus, who 
 shall be all in all among the children of men. 
 But until this be finished by degrees, as it is now 
 begun and proceeds, the kingdom of Christ on earth 
 is, and shall be, as at the first, a holy nation, a royal 
 priesthood, a peculiar people, zealous, not to fight 
 and destroy, or to meddle with the kingdoms or rule 
 of the world, but of good works, against whom there 
 is no law founded upon righteousness and truth. But 
 until this be accomplished, nation will lift up sword 
 against nation, and they will learn and exercise war; 
 but as to us, we, through the mercy and goodness of 
 God, are of those in whom this prophecy is begun to 
 be fulfilled, and we can learn war no more. For as 
 a nation shall not be born in one day, so this prophecy 
 shall not be fulfilled in one generation, but in several, 
 but, being fulfilled, shall not fail any more forever. 
 As for you, who are yet in wars and fightings, how 
 are ye his subjects, or members of his holy nation, 
 his royal priesthood, or peculiar people ? Or how 
 can you be, until you obey his doctrine, to love God 
 above all, to love one another in him, to love your 
 enemies, do good unto them who hate you, and pray 
 for them who despitefully use and persecute you ? 
 
 " ' We, who do not fight with carnal weapons, meddle 
 not with you who do, otherwise than to persuade you 
 to leave that off and be enlisted under the saving 
 banner of the Prince of peace; to believe in the 
 divine light of the Son of God; to come out of the 
 14 
 
158 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OP 
 
 spirit of this world, in which is all trouble, into the 
 Spirit and kingdom of Christ, in whom there is per- 
 fect peace. If ye will not do this, we must leave you 
 to fight one with another, until you are weary, and 
 have the recompense of it, one by another, in the 
 natural consequences of that destructive evil ; with 
 this caution of the apostle, nevertheless, " That if you 
 bite and devour one another, take heed lest ye be 
 destroyed one by another." I desire you to leave us 
 to the Lord, to serve him unto whom we belong, and 
 fight in his name, under his banner, against the 
 enemy of our souls, against whom we find warring 
 sufficient, and fighting enough daily, though we war 
 not among you to destruction, nor one with another 
 to the breach of peace." 
 
 We find nothing further occurring on this journey 
 proper for our purpose in these sketches. Our Friend 
 again reached Philadelphia in safety, in the 7th 
 month, 1704, and remained there, occupied in the 
 affairs incident to his offices, until 2d month, 1705, 
 when we find him setting forth on a journey to the 
 Southern colonies. 
 
 At a stated meeting in Virginia, where he had been 
 challenged to a dispute on various topics by the 
 clergyman of the district, he was led into the follow- 
 ing beautiful analysis of the Lord's prayer : — 
 
 " The introduction, or address, of that prayer of 
 prayers, is to the Almighty, as he is the Father of 
 all, — with acknowledgment that his habitation is in 
 heaven, above all. And the first petition is, that his 
 
THOMAS STORY. 
 
 159 
 
 name, or by what word soever the Divine Being- 
 is meant, expressed, or designed, may be mentioned 
 with reverence and awe, as the most holy thing-, and 
 not blasphemed, lightly used, profaned, or taken in 
 vain. And the second petition is, that his kingdom, 
 rule, dominion, and government may come, be made 
 manifest and established over all the earth and every 
 soul therein, throughout all generations, as explained 
 by the next words therein, that is to say, ' Thy will 
 be done in earth as it is in heaven,' which implies 
 the highest degree of perfection and exaltation human 
 nature is capable of in this life. For, if the will or 
 law of God is to be done in earth as in heaven, then 
 there can be no more possibility of sin, unrighteous- 
 ness, or evil among the children of men, to the end 
 of the world ) for the expression is unlimited, in- 
 cluding all persons, ages, and times. And all the holy 
 angels of God in heaven, and the spirits of the just 
 made perfect, continually and forever do the will of 
 God to all perfection, in which also standeth their 
 life eternal. And we are here taught to pray that 
 it ma} 7 likewise be the same here on earth. And the 
 next petition in this divine and most perfect prayer 
 regard eth ourselves, with respect to our present per- 
 sonal divine nourishment and sustenance while here 
 on earth, and forever; and that is, 'Give us this day 
 our daily bread/ even the true bread which the 
 Father giveth from heaven, the bread of life, which 
 giveth life unto the world, of which mankind may 
 eat and not die, — the living bread which comes down 
 
160 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 from heaven, of which whosoever shall eat, he shall 
 live forever, which is likewise that flesh which Christ 
 giveth for the life of the world, and unto him who- 
 soever shall come shall not hunger or thirst any more. 
 This is that ever-living and heavenly bread which 
 sfiveth life unto the world. This is the hidden manna, 
 more excellent than that in the wilderness, — the tree 
 of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God. 
 By the breaking of this bread is the Son of God 
 made manifest unto him who eateth thereof, to be 
 that meat which endureth unto everlasting life. This 
 is the same heavenly bread which the apostles and 
 primitives loved, desired, and prayed for, that they 
 might be continual partakers of it, and which we 
 also have prayed for, do pray for, and are mercifully 
 and graciously heard of the Holy One unto whom 
 we do pray. By this bread we grow and increase 
 from stature to stature, and from strength to strength, 
 unto eternal life and everlasting establishment and 
 perfection in glory, in and with him who liveth and 
 reigneth over all, in all, and above all, and is worthy 
 for evermore. 
 
 u The next petition is, ' Forgive us our trespasses, 
 as we forgive them who trespass against us.' This 
 petition also is suited to general or universal com- 
 munion. For, as all have sinned and come short of 
 the glory of God, all and every one ought, being con- 
 vinced of sin by the Holy Spirit, to confess their 
 sins unto him who convinceth them, and to desire 
 forgiveness, — whether of God, for sins committed 
 
THOMAS STOR Y. 
 
 161 
 
 against him, or for trespasses done, one against 
 another. In both cases, confession is to be made to 
 the offended, and forgiveness requested, before we 
 can reasonably expect it, whether of God or man. 
 For as to our sins against God, it is said, 1 If we con- 
 fess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our 
 sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness and 
 sin.' And as to our trespasses one against another, 
 it is said, 1 If thy brother shall trespass agaiust thee, 
 go and tell him his fault between him and thee alone : 
 if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother/ 
 &c. Or, again, < If thy brother trespass against thee, 
 rebuke him j and if he repent, forgive him.' And as 
 God is merciful unto all, so he would have us all be 
 merciful one to another ; and therefore Christ the 
 Lord commenteth upon this petition in an especial 
 manner, sajung, ' If ye forgive men their trespasses, 
 your heavenly Father will also forgive you ; but if ye 
 forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your 
 heavenly Father forgive your trespasses/ In all 
 which the Lord teacheth us to be like himself, full 
 of goodness, mercy, and social virtue, doing the will 
 of the Father on earth as it is done in heaven, in a 
 state of restoration, redemption, righteousness, and 
 true holiness, the end whereof is life eternal, which 
 is opposite to a state of sin, in the nature of things, 
 and [is] the end of the coming and manifestation of 
 the Son of God. 
 
 " The next petition is, ' Lead us not into tempta- 
 tion, but deliver us from evil/ Jesus, when he was 
 14* 
 
163 
 
 BRIEF M E M 01 B OF 
 
 baptized, went up straightway out of the water; and 
 lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw 
 the Spirit of God descending, like a dove, and light- 
 ing upon him ; and lo, a voice from heaven, saying, 
 This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. 
 Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilder- 
 ness, to be tempted of the devil. Mankind in 
 general, being already in sin, and under condemnation 
 in the first Adam, and Jesus the Saviour only free, 
 being the Lamb of God, without spot or blemish, it 
 was necessary, in the counsel of the Father, that he 
 should be tempted of the evil one, the common enemy 
 and tempter of mankind; that thereby, even as man, 
 he might have a fellow-feeling of our weakness and 
 infirmities, and be the supporter of such as she aid 
 believe and trust in him and be tempted of evil; 
 which petition is also obtained by those who are his 
 through faith in his name. For as God tempteth no 
 man, nor is he himself tempted of evil, those who 
 are tempted [yield to temptation] are led aside of 
 their own lusts, and enticed ; so he suffereth none of 
 his to be J tempted above what they are able, but will 
 with the temptation also make a way to escape, that 
 they may be able to bear it;' and it is no sin to be 
 tempted unless we yield. These temptations are suf- 
 fered upon those who believe and are thereby become 
 the children of God, that they may have full trial of 
 the manifold grace of God toward them, of their 
 faith, patience, and love toward God, and one toward 
 another in him, and experience his blessing upon 
 
THOMAS STORY. 
 
 163 
 
 them, and come forth from under the weight and 
 burden of temptations, as from the furnace of afflic- 
 tion, as pure gold seven times tried therein, and not 
 as reprobate silver or dross, remaining as we are by 
 nature, in a sinful, sensual, polluted condition, ever 
 learning, and never able to come to the knowledge 
 of the Truth, or salvation by him. 
 
 " The last and concluding part is a just and sin- 
 cere acknowledgment unto the Father, that we can 
 do nothing without him, but by him ; ' for his is the 
 kingdom, and the power' to enter therein, by which 
 alone we can do all these things, and our whole duty 
 unto his holy requirings, whether with respect unto 
 the Lord himself, or one toward auother, as we ought. 
 And therefore, as we have no power or sufficiency 
 of our own, no glory or praise belongeth unto us for 
 the work required and wrought, either during our 
 conduct and abode in this world, or in the world to 
 come. And so this matter rested without reply." 
 
 Though much has been already introduced here on 
 the subject of water-baptism, we cannot refrain from 
 quoting the following reply of Thomas Story's to a 
 certain James Burtell, who had undertaken to prove 
 that Friends were no Christians, because they denied 
 baptism with water, offering that often-quoted but 
 much-misunderstood text of Scripture, " Go ye, there- 
 fore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in [iuto] the 
 name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
 Ghost," and assuming that in that text water-bap- 
 tism only is commanded, — reasoning from the pre- 
 
164 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 mises, viz., that herein some baptism was com- 
 manded to the apostles, and that baptism must be 
 such as they were capable of performing ; but they 
 were not capable of performing the baptism of the 
 Holy Ghost, yet with water they could baptize : 
 therefore water-baptism only can be here commanded, 
 — which conclusion, if we admit the truth of the 
 middle term in the premises, would indeed be irre- 
 futable. We shall see, however, how Thomas Story 
 disposes in a few words of this artistic syllogism. 
 
 " I answered, ' You may observe here that the 
 force of your minister's argument lies in this, that the 
 apostles of Christ could not baptize with the Holy 
 Ghost, but only with water, and therefore it must be 
 water-baptism. I grant that the apostles could not 
 baptize with the Holy Ghost at their own pleasure, 
 when, and whom, and where they would, in their 
 own wills, as your ministers can and do administer 
 what they call and have taught you to believe and 
 think is Christ's baptism ; but that the apostles 
 could not instrumentally baptize with the Holy Ghost, 
 I deny. For that institution is introduced after this 
 manner: — "And Jesus came and spake unto them, 
 saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in 
 earth : go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, bap- 
 tizing them in [or into] the name of the Father, and 
 of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to 
 observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you; 
 and lo, I am with you always, even unto the , end of 
 the world." "And he said unto them, [at the same 
 
THOMAS STORY. 
 
 165 
 
 time,] Go ye into all the world, and preach the gos- 
 pel to every creature.' ' " He that believeth and is 
 baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not 
 shall be damned." And that this was not water-bap- 
 tism plainly appeareth by what the Lord further 
 commanded his apostles at the same time, — that they 
 should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the 
 promise* of the Father, which he had told them of 
 before he suffered : — " For John truly baptized with 
 water, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost 
 not many days hence." 
 
 " ' This baptism here commanded is not water-bap- 
 tism, for the apostles were in the practice of water- 
 baptism in John's time, before the institution of this 
 baptism ) and it is here contradistinguished, as 
 belonging to John's dispensation, and which some 
 practised — though we have so few instances of it that 
 it can hardly be called practice with propriety — after 
 the beginning of the ministration of the baptism of 
 the Holy Ghost, which none can administer without 
 the immediate presence and power of the Holy Ghost, 
 the Spirit of Christ, given to that end. But some 
 apostles both could and did administer water-baptism, 
 in the proper dispensation of it, without the power 
 of the Holy Ghost, which was not then given as a 
 dispensation, and which any bold and busy undertaker 
 at this day can, and some do, administer, by the 
 ordinary powers of nature, without the assistance of 
 the Holy Ghost on that account, which they neither 
 know nor believe in. But the baptism here com- 
 
166 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 mauded neither the apostles themselves could, much 
 less can any one else, administer, but by the imme- 
 diate power of the Holy Ghost co-working in them, 
 with them, and by them; and therefore Christ pro- 
 mised that they should "receive power after that the 
 Holy Ghost was come upon them;" and then, and not 
 till then, they were his proper witnesses, but could 
 baptize with the Holy Ghost until they themselves 
 were baptized therewith. And as He who hath all 
 power in heaven and earth promised to be with them 
 by that power always, in that and all other works of 
 the gospel ministry, to the end of the world, so they 
 went forth and preached everywhere, " the Lord 
 working with them, and confirming the word with 
 signs following." And this promise relates not only 
 to them then present, but to all the true ministers of 
 Christ, according to their various gifts, degrees, and 
 services, from thenceforth throughout all ages ; yet, 
 as a just check and prohibition to all bold, forward, 
 and presumptuous spirits, it is also written concern- 
 ing the Holy Ghost, that he shall not " speak of him- 
 self, but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak : 
 and he will show you things to come." 
 
 " 'And as Christ himself is the Truth, and in the 
 days of his flesh was always subject unto the Father 
 and under his direction, and imputed all his words 
 and works to him, by this text it appears to be so 
 still, and ever will be, in all the work of the redemp- 
 tion and salvation of mankind. Then what and who 
 art thou, 0 dark, carnal, sinful, polluted man, of all 
 
THOMAS STORY. 
 
 167 
 
 thy fallen kind, who darest assume upon thyself to 
 intermeddle with the things of God, which thou dost 
 not understand, nor so much as believe that the Holy 
 Ghost is now to be given, and waited for, as the 
 immediate guide, leader, and director in the things 
 of God and work of the gospel ? Thou art an un- 
 believer, and therefore in a state of condemnation; 
 thou art not saved thyself, and how then canst thou 
 be a saviour upon Mount Zion, instrumentally to 
 save others in the Spirit of Him who is the great 
 Saviour of all V 
 
 " Then James Burtell questioned whether there is 
 such a text in Scripture as that ' John truly bap- 
 tized with water, but ye shall be baptized with the 
 Holy Ghost not many days hence;' but my com- 
 panion, Joseph Glaister, who was very ready that 
 way, producing the place, the priest was silent as to 
 that. 
 
 " Then I insisted that since I had been interrupted 
 before I had finished the point I was then upon, it 
 was but reasonable and fair that I might, without 
 further interruption, proceed to finish it; and so 
 proceeded thus, viz. : — 
 
 "'Having proved that the baptism of the Holy 
 Ghost, and not water-baptism, is instituted, in the 
 text and context in question, and the full capacity 
 of the apostles and ministers of Christ to perform it 
 in his Spirit and power, I now proceed to prove that 
 they did baptize with the Holy Ghost accordingly. 
 But before I proceed any further, that we may not 
 
168 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 beat the air through any misunderstanding or differ- 
 ent applications of words to things, favor me with 
 thy definition of the baptism of the Holy Ghost, and 
 what thou understands by it, that I may know 
 whether we by the same terms mean the same 
 things/ 
 
 " He answered, rightly, ' That the baptism of the 
 Holy Ghost is the descending of the Holy Spirit into 
 the hearts of those who believe and wait for his 
 coming.' ' Very well,' said I : ' but is this all V 
 And upon a short pause he answered, 'No : he work- 
 eth in mankind the work of regeneration ; and this 
 is his complete baptism.' 
 
 "I answered, 'Well, then, I now prove that the 
 apostles, in the wisdom and power of the Spirit of 
 Christ, were instrumental ministers of this baptism. 
 First, when Peter preached to Cornelius and his 
 household, " the Holy Ghost fell on all them which 
 heard the word." And in his relation of the passage, 
 in his defence before the apostles and elders, before 
 whom he was accused, as if he had committed an 
 error, and broken the law or custom of the Jews, by 
 preaching to the Gentiles and eating *vith them, 
 though their mission was expressly to all nations, he 
 defines the falling of the Holy Ghost upon them to be 
 the baptism of the Holy Ghost mentioned by Christ 
 in the text in question, or context, in these words: 
 — "And as I began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell 
 on them as on us at the beginning : then remembered 
 I the word of the Lord, how that he said, John indeed 
 
THOMAS S T 0 R Y. 
 
 169 
 
 baptized with water, but ye shall be baptized with 
 the Holy Ghost." ' " 
 
 After this, Burtell adduced the instance of the 
 eunuch's baptism by Philip, quoting the text, " See, 
 here is water: what doth hinder me to be baptized?" 
 Our Friend's reply to this, as showing the marked 
 distinction between the two baptisms, — viz., that of 
 John with water, and that which Christ sent his 
 disciples to perform, — is worthy of the reader's care- 
 ful perusal. 
 
 "'That the baptism was not in the name of the 
 Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, but in the name of 
 Jesus Christ only ; and this shows it was no other 
 but a continuance of John's water-baptism, of which 
 they were in practice before Christ suffered, and 
 before the command in Matt, xxviii. 19. That it 
 has no reference to infants, though the word "children" 
 is there ; for all Israel, young and old, are called the 
 children of Israel, as one generation : the aged as 
 well as infants are the children of their ancestors. 
 And the promise there mentioned has no relation to 
 water-baptism, but to the gift of the Holy Ghost, 
 promised of God by the prophet Isaiah to Israel : — "I 
 will pour my spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing 
 upon thine offspring," kc. And I deny thy conclu- 
 sion barely from the practice ; for the apostles prac- 
 tised circumcision, vows, shavings, <tc, and were in 
 the practice [as said] of water-baptism, before this 
 command was given. The apostle to the "weak 
 became as weak, to all men all things, that by all 
 15 
 
170 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 means he might gain some." But his practice in all 
 he did is no warrant to others to follow him ; for he 
 baptized with water, and yet confesses fairly he was 
 not sent of Christ to do it, — so that neither his prac- 
 tice, nor that of the other apostles, is cogent. 
 
 " 'And farther, there is not one instance in all the 
 New Testament where any apostle baptized, or com- 
 manded any to be baptized, with water in the name 
 of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; but where any 
 water is used, it is only in the name of Jesus Christ, 
 and for the most part to the Jews. For, as the Jews 
 were to have remission of sins by faith in Christ, as 
 born of the Virgin, and the Spirit, upon that faith, 
 is a gradual manifestation, so the Gentiles were to 
 have remission of sins by faith in him, as he is the 
 " true light which lighteth every man who cometh 
 into the world. " So that baptism was no means to 
 them of receiving the Spirit, whatever it might be to 
 the Jews, or Jewish proselytes. 
 
 " 'Again, you may note that the Apostle Paul, who 
 was sent to the Gentiles in a particular manner, 
 denies that baptism with water was any part of his 
 commission; for he saith expressly, "Christ sent me 
 not to baptize, but to preach the gospel." Now, since 
 this great and first minister of the Gentiles had no 
 commission to baptize with water, we may justly con- 
 clude it was not necessary to that work; and if not 
 to our forefathers, then not to us. And if he had no 
 commission, then none could succeed him in a com- 
 
T II O M A S S T O 11 Y. 
 
 171 
 
 mission; and then the pretence of all to baptize the 
 Gentiles is vain.' 
 
 "I added, further, that, my adversary being almost 
 on ground, 1 That though the apostles did baptize 
 some, especially of the Jews, and it may be some 
 others, in the beginning of the gospel dispensation; 
 yet it does not follow that there was any necessity for 
 its continuance. For as Christ said, " I have yet 
 many things to say, but you are not able to bear 
 them j" so also the apostle, "I could not write unto 
 you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal ; I have fed 
 you with milk, and not with meat ; for hitherto you 
 were not able to bear it, nor are you yet able." And 
 so soon as the church was able to bear this doctrine 
 of baptism in its spirituality, the two great apostles, 
 Peter and Paul, both explained it unto thein. xVnd 
 as for a time, and under divers administrations, there 
 had been divers baptisms, yet at last all centred in 
 one baptism; for John was to decrease, and Christ 
 to increase. That which decreases comes to an end; 
 but that which increases never ends. John has 
 decreased near seventeen huudred years, and is come 
 to an end, and Christ hath increased as long to some, 
 — though the beginning of his kingdom is not yet 
 known unto many. Paul, or the inspired author of 
 the Epistle to the Hebrews, speaks of baptisms; but 
 to the Ephesians he saith, " There is one Lord, one 
 faith, and one baptism ;" and what that one baptism is, 
 he also informs us in his Epistle to the Corinthians : — 
 " We are all baptized by oue Spirit into one body, the 
 
172 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 church j which is his body, the fulness of him that 
 filleth all in all." Again, Peter saith, " 'Tis not the 
 putting away the filth of the flesh, but the answer of 
 a good conscience towards God, by the resurrection 
 [i.e. revelation] of Jesus Christ." Here it is both 
 negatively and positively defined, what it is not, and 
 what it is : "it is not the putting away the filth of 
 the flesh," then not water, which extends no further, 
 "but the answer of a good conscience," which never 
 can be but by the work of the Holy Ghost descending 
 into us, as my adversary hath defined the Spirit's 
 baptism, and sanctifying our hearts, working the work 
 of regeneration, and a holy conformity to the will of 
 God, even through that " power that raised up Jesus 
 from the dead, by the glory of the Father, so also 
 should we walk in newness of life." And this is the 
 inseparable effect of the one only spiritual and per- 
 manent baptism of the Holy Ghost, in which Christ 
 is with his ministers, unto all that are qualified to 
 receive it, to the end of the world/ I had room 
 enough by this time, and that made me more large ; 
 but my antagonist to this made me this unexpected 
 return : — 
 
 " 'It is true there is one baptism, but that baptism 
 hath two parts : the one is water, the other, Spirit 5 
 for as the body and soul make one man, so water and 
 spirit make one baptism.' 
 
 " To this I demanded his proof out of Scripture, 
 wherever the Spirit and water made up one baptism, 
 or concurred in the act of baptizing, as the Holy 
 
T IIOMAS STOR Y. 
 
 173 
 
 Ghost, and preaching the gospel in the power and 
 wisdom of the Spirit, had done. 
 
 "He answered, That wheresoever John's baptism 
 was duly administered, the Holy Ghost was given at 
 the same time ; which being so palpable an error, I 
 greatly admired at this answer, and returned, 'I will 
 prove the direct contrary by plain Scripture, though 
 it is thy part to make good thy assertion, if thou canst, 
 — viz. : Acts xix., where the apostle asked certain 
 disciples whether they had received the Holy Ghost 
 since they believed. And they said, "We have not 
 so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost." 
 And the apostle replied, " Unto what, then, were you 
 baptized?" They said only, "Unto John's baptism," 
 {i.e. water-baptism,) and were so far from receiving 
 the Holy Ghost at the same time that they had not 
 so much as heard whether there was such a thing in 
 being. 
 
 "'Again, Simon Magus had water-baptism duly 
 administered; and yet he had neither part nor lot in 
 the Holy Ghost.'" 
 
 Returning to Philadelphia, Thomas Story remained 
 there until the year 1708-09, during which period his 
 marriage took place. Of this period of his life we 
 have little or no account. Again we find him earnest 
 and unwearied in the gospel work, taking his de- 
 parture from all he loved best on earth, with the 
 intention of visiting the island of Barbadoes. On 
 their return-voyage their vessel was taken by a 
 French privateer, and they were carried prisoners 
 15* 
 
174 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 into a port on the island of Hispaniola, and he was 
 kept a prisoner by the French for more than a year, 
 during which time he had to suffer great hardships, 
 sickness, and rough usage. He was at last set at 
 liberty in an exchange of prisoners, and arrived 
 safely in Philadelphia about the year 1710. During 
 this year his wife died; and he has left no account of 
 his occupation or services during the next four years, 
 but was most probably employed in the duties of his 
 several offices in Philadelphia until the year 1714, 
 when he again found his mind religiously engaged to 
 visit Barbadoes, England, and other places. After a 
 sojourn of several months in the island, and a con- 
 stant engagement during that time in the attendance 
 of meetings, he sailed for London, where he arrived 
 on the 6th of 10th month, 1714. Soon after his 
 arrival he went to Ruscomb, on a visit to William 
 Penn, of which he has left the following account. 
 It is a sad picture to contemplate of a brilliant intel- 
 lect dimmed by disease and a noble heart worn out 
 by the ingratitude of those for whose welfare he had 
 given up the best years of his well-spent life. 
 
 "On the 15th, being the fourth day of the week, 
 accompanied by John Crouch, with whom I lodged, 
 I went to Ruscomb to visit William Peun and his 
 family. He was then under the effects of an apo- 
 plectic fit which he had had some time before. His 
 memory was almost lost, and the use of his under- 
 standing suspended, so that he was not so conversable 
 as formerly, and yet as near the Truth, in the love of 
 
THOMAS STORY. 
 
 175 
 
 it, as before. Serein appeared the great mercy and 
 favor of God, who looks not as man looks; for though 
 to some this accident might look like a judgment, 
 and no doubt his enemies so accounted it, yet it will 
 bear quite another interpretation, if it be considered 
 how little time of rest he ever had from the impor- 
 tunities and the affairs of others, to the great hurt of 
 his own, till this happened to him, by which he was 
 rendered incapable of all business, and yet as sen- 
 sible of the enjoyment of Truth as at any time in his 
 life. 
 
 " "When I went to the house I thought myself 
 strong enough to see him in that condition; but when 
 I entered the room and perceived the great defect of 
 his expressions for want of memory, it greatly bowed 
 my spirit, under a consideration of the uncertainty 
 of all human qualifications, and what the finest of 
 men are soon reduced to. Nevertheless, no insauity 
 or lunacy at all appeared in his actions, and his mind 
 was in an innocent state, as appeared by his very 
 loving deportment to all that came near him ; and 
 that he had still a good sense of Truth was plain, by 
 some very clear sentences he spoke in the life and 
 power of Truth, in an evening meeting we had there, 
 wherein we were greatly comforted ; so that I was 
 ready to think this was a sort of sequestration of him 
 from all the concerns of this life, which so much 
 oppressed him, — not in judgment, but in mercy, that 
 he might have rest, and not be oppressed thereby to 
 the end." 
 
176 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 After a visit to his father, who was still living at 
 Justicetown, though by this time very aged, and the 
 attendance of numerous meetings in various places, 
 he sailed from Yarmouth on a voyage to Holland. 
 In that country he met with great kindness, especially 
 from a sect there called the Minists, who in many 
 respects closely resembled Friends : these people, 
 whenever he met with them, tendered him the use 
 of their meeting-houses and assisted him in his 
 labors as far as they were able. At Hamburg he 
 heard from a Friend there the following anecdote of 
 the Russian Czar, Peter the Great. 
 
 u In the year 1712, the Czar of Muscovy, being in 
 the city of Frederickstadt, in Holstein, about two 
 days' journey from hence, with five thousand soldiers 
 to assist the Danes against the Swedes, after he had 
 quartered his men, inquired of one of the burgo- 
 masters whether there were any of the people called 
 Quakers there. The said officer told him there were 
 a few. Then the Czar asked him if they had a 
 meeting in that place. The officer told him they 
 had. Then the Czar bid the officer let the Friends 
 know that if they would appoint their meeting that 
 forenoon, being the first day, he would be at it. The 
 officer replied that there were thirty of his soldiers 
 in the meeting-place, so that there could not be any 
 meeting in it. When the Czar heard that, he was 
 angry that they had put soldiers there, and sent an 
 order by one of his own captains, that they should all 
 be put out forthwith, and that notice should be given 
 
THOMAS STOR Y. 
 
 177 
 
 to the Friends by the captain, that if they would ap- 
 point their meeting; he would come to it. Accord- 
 ingly, the officer gave notice thereof to the said Jacob 
 Hagen, and Philip Defatr. a public Friend who lived 
 there, and not only ordered the soldiers out of the 
 room, but made them take away all they had brought 
 thither. The place being made ready, they had their 
 meeting at the second hour afternoon, to which the 
 Czar came, and brought with him Prince Menzikoff, 
 of Muscovy, the General Dolgorucky, and several 
 other of his dukes, generals, secretaries of state, and 
 other great men ; and, a great crowd following, he 
 ordered the door to be shut as soon as a competent 
 number were in to sit comfortably; and many more 
 came to the windows. After some time of silence, 
 Philip Defair preached the doctrine of Truth among 
 them, and all sat very quietly, but especially the Czar, 
 who sat very gravely all the time of silence; and all 
 the others, being awed by his example and presence, 
 did so likewise. But, the Muscovite lords and 
 generals not understanding the language, the Czar 
 himself, understanding it pretty well, interpreted 
 to them what was declared, with much gravity and 
 seriousness, commending what he heard, saying 
 that whoever could live according to that doctrine 
 would be happy. A Friend after this presenting 
 him with Robert Barclay's Catechism and Apology, 
 in High Dutch, he said he would have them trans- 
 lated and printed in his own language. " 
 
 Though, at the period of which we write, there 
 
178 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 appear to have been but few Friends in Holland and 
 Germany, yet the labor of early Friends in former 
 years had not been entirely without its good fruits; 
 for in most of the places visited by Thomas Story 
 he found a few who assembled in their own houses, 
 or elsewhere, and held their meetings as Friends, 
 often in silence, as they had little ministry among 
 themselves. But, besides these, he found many 
 earnest seekers after truth, who could not unite with 
 the established way of worship and who sought 
 earnestly for a more inward and spiritual religion. 
 By such he was everywhere joyfully received; and 
 to them his ministry came as tidings indeed of great 
 joy and salvation. 
 
 At Dokuui, a town in Friesland, a certain Corsten, 
 a Minist of that place, related to him a remarkable 
 anecdote of Sarah Collier, a Friend who had been 
 there some years before and desired to have the use 
 of their meeting-house, which was refused her; but 
 he himself, secretly desiring to be at such a meeting, 
 gave her the use of his own house, where the meet- 
 ing was accordingly held. After it was over, Sarah 
 Collier, expressing a desire to see his wife, who had 
 suffered from disease for fourteen years and had 
 hitherto been able to find no relief, was conducted 
 into her chamber, and after some time felt concerned 
 to pray for her recovery; and, to the astonishment of 
 the husband and all who saw it, the sick woman was 
 almost immediately restored to health. This circumr 
 stance is related by our Friend simply as he heard it, 
 
THOMAS STORY. 
 
 179 
 
 and without comment; and we can find no reason to 
 doubt the truth of it. As we discover nothing' 
 further in the account of this Holland journey that 
 appears desirable to insert here, we shall pass over a 
 considerable period, and, without any close adherence 
 to the regular sequence of events as they occurred, 
 give such extracts from his journal as seem most 
 likely to impress and enlighten the minds of those 
 under whose observation they may come. During 
 the year 1717, at a meeting near the town of Water- 
 ford, in Ireland, where Thomas Story was then on a 
 religious visit, he expressed the following views upon 
 that much discussed and vexed question of predesti- 
 nation, which at that da}-, whatever it may be now, 
 seems to have been a prominent article in the creed 
 of some religious bodies. They seem to us to be, at 
 all events, as satisfactory an explanation of the diffi- 
 culty as any thing we have elsewhere met with. He 
 says : — 
 
 u Another point also fell in my way, — viz., predes- 
 tination ; wherein the Presbyterians say, ' That God, 
 from all eternity, hath decreed some men and angels 
 unto life and salvation, and others unto damnation 
 or destruction ; and the number is so certain and 
 defiuite that not one can be added or diminished j 1 
 referring, for more certainty of words, to the Greater 
 Catechism of the Presbyterians made at Westminster. 
 Upon which I thus remarked, among other things : — 
 ' That it is a contradiction in the terms in which 
 they have laid it down 3 for the act of the divine 
 
ISO 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 Will* moving to a decree, must have a beginning in 
 order to effect that decree, and therefore cannot be 
 from all eternity, or without beginning, — which is all 
 one. And if God had at all made such a decree, 
 whether before or since the world began, he had not 
 then left any room for that saying, "As I live, saith 
 the Lord, I desire not the death of a sinner, [whether 
 it might be man or angel,] but rather that he should 
 turn from his wickedness and live." But so the 
 Lord hath said long since the world began, and since 
 the time of the supposed decree ; and therefore he 
 had not made any such decree at all. And again : 
 when God, by his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, offered 
 salvation to all the people of the Jews, especially at 
 Jerusalem, and they, most of them, refusing it upon 
 the terms offered, he wept over them, saying, (i 0 
 Jerusalem, &c, thou that killest the prophets, &c, 
 how often would I have gathered thy children, as a 
 hen gathereth her chickens, &c., but thou wouldst 
 not. Oh that thou hadst known, in this thy day, the 
 things that belong to thy peace ! but now they are 
 hid from thine eyes." Xow, if God had decreed 
 these to destruction, why did he then offer them sal- 
 vation and charge it upon themselves as an act of 
 their own wills to refuse it ? It cannot consist with 
 any notion of justice that God should decree any to 
 damnation, without either foresight of faith, or con- 
 dition of works, and yet offer terms of salvation to 
 the same persons, as in this case, and seem to reject 
 them for non-compliance, when He that is almighty 
 
T II 0 M AS 6 TO R Y. 
 
 m 
 
 hath determined they shall never comply,' — with 
 much more to the same effect, too long to be inserted 
 here." 
 
 Whilst still in Ireland, on the same religious visit, 
 Thomas Story was, owing to the malicious perse- 
 cution of a certain bishop, and without any legal 
 authority, cast into the common jail, among the vilest 
 criminals ; but, by the interference of the sheriff of 
 the county, he did not long remain there, being re- 
 moved to the sheriff's house and kindly treated. 
 Soon after, his persecutors, becoming alarmed for the 
 consequences of their illegal action in the matter, were 
 glad to have him entirely liberated. We call the 
 reader's attention to the following extract from our 
 Friend's journal at this time, which gives us a beau- 
 tiful illustration of the true nature of the rights of the 
 subject in matters of religious opinion. 
 
 "As they advanced toward us, I began to speak 
 to those persons with me above mentioned, concern- 
 ing the grounds upon which my adversaries built, — 
 viz., the supposition that the Toleration Act extended 
 not to Ireland. But I told them, ' They were mis- 
 taken ; for all men by nature are free, till that free- 
 dom is taken away, either by policy or force. Some 
 penal laws, then, made by an antichristian policy and 
 applied by tyrannical force, having obstructed the 
 liberty of the subjects of England for a time, yet that 
 liberty was not destroyed j but, that force being re- 
 moved, liberty revived and turned into her natural 
 channel. For there are many statute-laws in Eng- 
 16 
 
182 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 land in which there are several terms and clauses of 
 enacting that in reality are not initiatory of new 
 matter or new laws or privileges never before claimed, 
 or enjoyed by the people, of right, but declaratory 
 only of rights and privileges in possession by them 
 and their ancestors, before endangered by evil coun- 
 sellors to kings and princes, who for their own 
 advancement in favor are too frequently the wicked 
 instruments of tyrannical and enslaving counsels, 
 where they meet with any degree of propensity in the 
 tempers of their princes biassing them that way. Of 
 the like nature is this Toleration Act in England; 
 which native rights and privileges all Englishmen 
 carry along with them into all regions of the world 
 where they settle under the regimen of the crown of 
 England, now upon a very worthy head, who declares 
 for liberty to all his Protestant dissenting subjects 
 throughout his dominions the world over; and that 
 indulgence they enjoy everywhere but here. The 
 Act of Toleration extends to Ireland, America, and all 
 the king's dominions, being declaratory in its own 
 nature, not only of English, but also of gospel, liber- 
 ties, and which we now insist upon against the unjust 
 force of such as oppose themselves here. And that 
 this is, and ever hath been, the mind of the king and 
 his predecessors, since that law was made, is plain, by 
 extending that liberty and indulgence here, as like- 
 wise to all English dominions. And not only thus, 
 but the king has given us his royal word for his pro- 
 tection, upon several addresses, and particularly upon 
 
THOMAS STORY. 
 
 183 
 
 one from our last yearly meeting at London, the 20th 
 day of the od month, 1716; and another since, from 
 our last national meeting at Dublin, here in Ireland, 
 to which he was pleased to answer in these words, 
 viz. : " I thank you for the assurance of duty and 
 affection to my person and government contained in 
 this address; and you may always depend upon my 
 protection." I myself was present, with many more, 
 when the king received us with this first address in 
 his own bedchamber, — so great was his condescension 
 and regard to his loving and peaceable subjects. But 
 it seems the mayor and magistrates here think it 
 their interest to insist upon an opinion quite of 
 another nature, at the hazard of what may follow; 
 for you may assure yourselves we are as jealous and 
 tenacious both of our gospel and natural liberties as 
 anybody here can be bent to deprive us of them.' " 
 
 It might not be unprofitable to offer in this place 
 a short abstract of the sound and orthodox views of 
 the society of Friends, as expressed by Thomas Story 
 in a conversation which took place between himself 
 and Lord Lonsdale in relation to a true knowledge 
 of God, and to the nature and offices of the Saviour 
 in the great work of redemption. We quote from 
 his journal as follows : — 
 
 " During the time of my abode in this country, 
 having some concerns with the Lord Lonsdale, I went 
 to Lowther Hall, where he then resided, to attend 
 him therein, where he gave me more respect than I 
 desired or expected; and, after I had finished my 
 
184 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 business with him, he moved some discourse concern- 
 ing some points of religion, there being none else in 
 the company but Counsellor Blencoe, a young lawyer. 
 The point chiefly discussed was the knowledge of God, 
 and by what means mankind may arrive at it, — in 
 which I was drawn out to this purpose :-. — That many 
 wise and ingenious men apply themselves with suc- 
 cess to the knowledge of things in this life and 
 relating thereto, and yet keep not within the strict 
 rules of virtue, whereby their knowledge vanishes in 
 the end, as not subservient to the purposes of another 
 world. Wherefore I recommended them to a real 
 inquiry after the knowledge of God, as the most noble 
 and most profitable subject a rational being could be 
 concerned about, and altogether necessary in order to 
 our happiness, as well in this as in a future state, 
 which man can never arrive at by the utmost efforts 
 of human reason. For though a rational being can- 
 not deny, but conclude there is a God, by the works 
 of the creation, which produced not themselves, but 
 were produced by another, and though reason must 
 conclude the Creator to be eternal, without beginning 
 or end, all-wise, all-knowing, all-powerful, omnipre- 
 sent, holy, righteous, just, and good, in all divine 
 perfections unchangeable, and though in all these 
 attributes we read of him in the Holy Scriptures, and 
 hear clear discourses of him frequently made by such 
 as say they know him, and perhaps in some measure 
 may j yet all this is but an image of knowledge as 
 to us, until by the agency of his own power and will 
 
THOMAS S T 0 R Y. 
 
 185 
 
 he is pleased to work in us such qualifications where- 
 by we may perceive him, and say, ' This is he,' 
 through that holy and blessed medium which he 
 himself hath, in good will to mankind, provided to 
 that end that we may believe in him, hope for him, 
 know him, have communion with him in a degree in 
 this life, and be forever blessed in the enjoyment of 
 him in a future condition. Of this knowledge no 
 man can rightly conceive by any thing another can 
 say who hath that knowledge, unless he to whom it 
 it is said or declared be in himself in some degree 
 under the same qualifications, by which the things 
 declared or spoken of present in the mind and 
 understanding, by a kind of divine sensation or 
 intuition, are self-evidencing by their own nature 
 and energy. As for example, to a man born 
 blind another can find no terms whereby to give 
 him a proper and distinct idea of colors, of light, 
 and the manner of the discovery of objects by that 
 medium unto those that see; whereas every one 
 that doth see concludes the same thing, by a kind 
 of sensitive intuition, at first view, without the 
 expense of ratiocination, or deducing conclusions 
 from stated premises. Nor, if we can suppose any 
 one has never in his life been touched with any 
 sense of that natural affection or principle we call 
 love, can any, by any terms he can use, inculcate 
 in such a person any idea of the thing ; whereas 
 all the experienced are affected in the same man- 
 ner, though perhaps not to the same degree, and 
 16* 
 
186 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 need no other terms but itself to inculcate the thing. 
 Since, then, in natural things it is impossible to ex- 
 hibit proper ideas to the apprehensions of those who 
 are deprived of natural qualifications and capacities 
 to receive them, how much more so in spirituals ! for 
 we cannot find out proper terms by which to exhibit 
 them to the view, understanding, or apprehension of 
 ethers, but as we borrow them from natural things, 
 which can never reach them as they are. When it 
 is said, God is a Spirit, a man must 'first have a dis- 
 tinct idea of a spirit before he can fix any notion of 
 God by that term ; and by the word God we intend 
 to express an awful and ineffable being • but none of 
 these terms exhibit that being to our sense, either in 
 fear or love. I come, then, to some positive expression 
 of Christ, viz., u Xo man hath known the Father but 
 the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal 
 hini." " This is life eternal, to know thee, the only 
 true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." 
 "No man can come unto me except the Father which 
 has sent me draw him." " No man hath seen God at 
 any time : the only-begotten [or first-begotten] Son 
 of God, who dwelleth in the bosom of the Father, he 
 hath manifested [or revealed] him." 
 
 "'By this it appears, 1st; That God may be 
 known, though not immediately, but by a proper 
 medium. 
 
 "<2d. That this medium is Christ, the Word of 
 God, who, having a reasonable soul, and clothed 
 therewith as a veil, is homogeneal to mankind, and 
 
THOMAS STORY. 
 
 187 
 
 thereby proportions the splendor of his glory, as God, 
 to the state of every soul, gradually revealing or 
 manifesting the Father therein, according to the 
 degrees of purification, capacity, and qualification he 
 worketh in it. 
 
 " 1 3d. That this knowledge is an experience, and 
 cives the soul a certain evidence and assurance of 
 eternal life j and God himself is that eternal life. 
 
 "<4th. That as the knowledge of the Son makes 
 way for the knowledge of the Father, so the draw- 
 ings of the Father excite to the knowledge of the 
 Son. 
 
 a 'It is not therefore the knowledge of the things 
 of God, or of all his attributes, or of any or all for- 
 mal truths, but of God himself, who is the essential 
 Truth, in which our happiness stands and forever 
 shall remain. For there are essential truths, and 
 there are formal truths. Jesus Christ, the wisdom 
 of God and power of God, is that essential Truth • 
 and that he is the Son of God, was incarnate, lived 
 as a man here on earth, was crucified as a propitia- 
 tion for the sins of the whole world, died, rose again, 
 ascended, is glorified in heaven, &c, are all formal 
 and unalterable truths j and yet the knowledge of all 
 these does not give life eternal, until the soul comes 
 to experience the indwelling of the essential Truth, 
 in its nature and being, through that holy and blessed 
 medium, homogeneal unto all, which cannot be until 
 we be reduced unto a state of holiness and purity of 
 mind. And therefore, to illustrate all I have said 
 
188 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 in a practical way, give me leave to add a little 
 further. Whilst I was yet in a natural and uncon- 
 verted state, I believed the being of G-od, and all his 
 attributes ; but I did not actually know God to be 
 righteous or holy, till he reproved unrighteousness or 
 unholiness in rue : or merciful and good, until, 
 through condemnation of evil, convincing me of evil 
 in myself, he also pardoned the acts of sin, and 
 destroyed the effects thereof, by the agency of his 
 own power, working that change that is meet, accord- 
 ing to his own will, through which I experience both 
 his goodness and mercy ; nor had I known him as a 
 consuming fire, unless by the refining operation of his 
 Spirit he had consumed my corruptions, or begun 
 that work; or that he is love, divine and unspeak- 
 able love, unless, by his own power, he had fitted me 
 in some measure to enjoy the influences of his grace 
 in a state of holiness, in which he rules as a Monarch 
 in the soul, according to that saying, " The kingdom 
 of heaven stands not in meats and drinks, [no out- 
 ward or natural enjoyments,] but in righteousness 
 and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost," which I know, 
 through grace, infinitely transcends, even in this life, 
 all that can be named besides. 
 
 " 'And though formal truths are commonly clouded 
 and confounded by the perverse and ignorant reason- 
 ings of the learned of this world, and numerous 
 opinions and sects are produced and engendered 
 thereby, yet the essential Truth is self-evidencing, 
 and whenever it appears in the soul she cannot deny 
 
THOMAS STORY. 
 
 189 
 
 or doubt, but by the cogency of his power and virtue 
 certainly and infallibly concludes in herself, that this 
 is He. For as there is no way or medium by which 
 we discover or perceive the body of the sun in the 
 firmament of heaven outward, but by the light which 
 proceeded from it, so there is not any medium by 
 which we can know God* but by his own light and 
 Truth, which is Jesus Christ, the efflux and emana- 
 tion of his own glory and being, and through that 
 holy and homogeneal mind wherewith he is veiled. 
 
 " 'And as the light of the sun carries along with it 
 the power and virtue of the sun wherever it shineth 
 in its unclouded rays, and by its influence nourishes 
 and makes fertile the animal and vegetable worlds, 
 even so, and much more also, doth the heavenly Sun 
 of righteousness, Jesus Christ, the essential Truth 
 and light of the rational and intellectual world, arise, 
 make known, and manifest himself in the soul ; 
 into whom, by the rays of his divine light, he intro- 
 duced and dispenseth the influence of divine hea- 
 venly virtue. Into them, I mean, who believe and 
 obey in the day of small things, — according to that 
 doctrine of an experienced holy man, " "Whatsoever 
 things are reproved are made manifest by the light; 
 for whatsoever makes manifest is light." And ao-ain, 
 according to that saying of the Truth himself, u I am 
 the light of the world : whosoever followeth me shall 
 not abide in darkness, but have the light of life." 
 We must therefore begin at the word of reproof, in 
 order to the sure knowledge of God and enjoyment 
 
190 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 of him, as he is love and an ocean of unspeakable 
 pleasure, and renounce the low and sordid pleasures 
 of the animal life, which disqualify for divine enjoy- 
 ments here and hereafter. But love God, love his 
 judgments and reproofs in your hearts, which are all 
 in love, in order to the manifestation of himself, ac- 
 cording to that saying, " Every son whom I love, I 
 rebuke and chasten, saith the Lord." And I can 
 assure you, if you can believe me, that as I have 
 tasted of the pleasures of this world, and, through the 
 goodness of God, known condemnation therein; so, 
 through his great mercy, I am favored of him with 
 this certain experience in some measure, — that the 
 enjoyment of God, in a state of reconciliation, is un- 
 declarably more excellent and eligible than all other 
 things, to the experience whereof I would recom- 
 mend and excite you.' This was the substance of 
 what then passed among us. The Lord Lonsdale, being 
 a very ingenious person, of strong natural parts and 
 penetration, asked me, 1 Since you had, before you 
 came to the knowledge of God, in the way you have 
 spoken of, believed the being of God and all his 
 attributes, did that knowledge make any alteration in 
 your way of thinking on that subject, or give you any 
 contrary sentiments that way V 
 
 "I replied, 'No; for as reason, a constituent 
 property of man, is still the same, and its proper ob- 
 jects the same also, so the knowledge of God makes 
 no alteration there. ' " 
 
 To make selections, where all is excellent and note- 
 
THOMAS STORY. 
 
 191 
 
 worthy, must be ever a difficult task; but enough, we 
 hope, is given here to show that in the subject of these 
 sketches we have a man endowed with intellectual 
 faculties of a high order, to which has been super- 
 added the far higher gift of true gospel ministry, — a 
 man of the clearest insight into the human heart 
 and into the springs of human action, with an intense 
 love of Truth for its own sake, and ready always to 
 devote all that he had or might have obtained in this 
 world — nay, even life itself — to establish and dissemi- 
 nate it. Nor was he a man only noteworthy as a 
 prominent advocate of the religious opinions of the 
 society of Friends, or as an eminent gospel minister; 
 but, judging from certain letters written by him to 
 James Logan, he must also have been a man of con- 
 siderable scientific attainments. His views on the 
 subject of geology, in relation to the period of time 
 occupied in the formation of the various strata in the 
 earth's crust, were not only far in advance of the age 
 in which he lived, but, what is remarkable, agree 
 entirely with those which obtain at the present day, 
 the results of laborious and widely-extended investi- 
 gation and of true scientific induction. His letter 
 to James Logan on this subject is well worth our 
 attention. We give an extract from it, as follows : — 
 
 "London, 12th month, 8, 1738. 
 
 •'Respected Friend: — I am much obliged by 
 thine of the 19th, 9ber, which I take this op- 
 portunity to acknowledge ; and it gives me a sen- 
 
192 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 sible satisfaction thou took so much notice of that 
 little collection of sermons as to cause it to be read 
 in thy family with approbation. And I must confess 
 to the honor of our Creator his great goodness in 
 giving and preserving my strength of body and mind 
 unto this age, through so many and various vicissi- 
 tudes of life, personal dangers, fatigues, troubles, and 
 exercises ; all of which, in his divine wisdom, he 
 hath ordered or turned to my good, preserving me in 
 charity and good will to all mankind, through many 
 provocations to human nature, in which, in point of 
 time, I may be about ten years before thee, but 
 many more short with respect to acquirements, for 
 which I never had suitable opportunity or time, if 
 capacity, — but have only this to say, that by the grace 
 of God I am what I am. But thy natural decays 
 hinted at give me some concern, considering how 
 useful thou might yet be in the world, thine being 
 no great age, in setting some things in a more lucid 
 view, now when kind Providence affords thee, as I 
 suppose, a little more leisure from those labors of 
 another kind which thou was thoroughly fitted for ; 
 and yet a more constant retirement may afford a 
 recruit unexpected, which I could heartily wish, as 
 not impossible, — though we ought to resign ourselves 
 and our friends in all things to the Divine will. 
 
 "As to any thing that looked like controversy be- 
 tween us, I never meant any. What happened was 
 only occasional. I only intended to support, or, as 
 far as I could, to illustrate, that great and fundamental 
 
THOMAS STORY. 
 
 193 
 
 truth, that there is in man, though not of man, or 
 essential to him as a creature, a Divine intelligencer 
 and conductor, which, if believed and followed, will 
 lead and guide into all truth necessary to mankind in 
 their several stations here, and in the end to com- 
 plete happiness. And without doubt is the same 
 thiog intended and meant in thine, where thou sayest, 
 ' I shall here say, that that gift or grace, whatever it 
 be, or however men may agree or disagree in explain- 
 ing it, is the only source of true happiness attainable 
 in this life, and that the only path that will lead to 
 the true and real enjoyment of it is that of humility, 
 and a sincere charity, without which all profession 
 of religion is empty show and no better than hypo- 
 crisy, however attended with zeal or the appearances 
 of a fervent devotion; and, as in this we undoubtedly 
 agree, I am sure we are safe in leaving it there, — to 
 which I readily subscribed, since the gift or grace 
 of God is the only source of true happiness attainable 
 in this life, &c, and the gift and receiver are not 
 the same until united by the efficiency of Divine wis- 
 dom and power. I therefore rest satisfied on this 
 point. As to what I have written as a comment 
 upon thy charge,* and on that occasion a short hy- 
 pothesis concerning the commencement of inert 
 matter in order to the establishment of the present 
 state of things, I did fully intend to send it, accord- 
 
 * He alludes to James Logan's celebrated charge to the grand 
 jury, April 13, 1736. See Armestead's Memoirs of James Logan, 
 p. 20. 
 
 17 
 
194 
 
 BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
 
 ing to expectation given in a former letter, but was 
 hindered by going into Yorkshire last summer, where 
 I spent some months, especially at Scarborough, 
 during the season, attending the meetings, — at whose 
 high cliffs, and the great variety of strata therein, 
 and their present positions, I further learned, and was 
 confirmed in, some things, and that the earth is of 
 much older date, as to the beginning of it, than the 
 time assigned in the Holy Scriptures, (as commonly 
 understood,) which is suited to the common capacities 
 of human kind, as to six days' progressive work, by 
 which I understand certain long and competent 
 periods of time, and not natural days, the time of the 
 beginning and finishing of all those great works being 
 undiscoverable by the mind of man, and hid in that 
 short period : — ' In the beginning Grod created the 
 heavens and the earth.' And then the author goes 
 on to set forth the further modifications of the terra- 
 queous globe, and, I conjecture, very long after it had 
 its being with the rest of the worlds." 
 
 Our present limits forbid us. here to follow in closer 
 detail the life and services of this truly eminent man. 
 From the time of his return from Ireland until his 
 death, we find him closely engaged in the attendance 
 of meetings in various places, and also laboring ear- 
 nestly and with success in soliciting from Parliament 
 greater freedom for Friends than they had before 
 enjoyed as regarded affirmation in courts of justice. 
 During the latter years of his life, a considerable part 
 of his time was spent in the improvement and em 
 
THOMAS STORY. 
 
 195 
 
 bellishment of the estate at Justicetown, which by 
 the death of his father had come into his possession. 
 In the winter of 1741 he was seized with a paralytic 
 affection, which almost deprived him of the power of 
 speech, and confiued him within-doors until the 
 return of spring, when he partially recovered, and 
 diligently attended the yearly meeting at London, 
 and afterward travelled as far as Carlisle, where he 
 resided till the 23d of fourth month, 1742, when in 
 the evening he was taken with a second and violent 
 attack of the disease, and next morning, being then 
 in the eighty-sixth year of his age, the calm and 
 peaceful death of the righteous closed the long labors 
 of a well-spent life ; and to his departure may well 
 apply the words, " Mark the upright man, and 
 behold the righteous; for the end of that man is 
 peace." 
 
 THE END. 
 
 STEREOTYPED BY L. JOHNSON & CO. 
 PHILADELPHIA. 
 
DATE DUE