Leicestershire, he came into Bedfordshire, and so on to John Crook's house, where a general yearly meeting was appointed, which lasted three days; and many of G. Fox's friends from most parts of the nation came to it, so that the inns in the towns thereabouts were filled. Here was also William Caton, who after the meeting was ended, went with Thomas Salthouse, formerly his fellow-servant in the house of judge Fell, to Westmoreland, Cumberland, and Swarthmore in Lancashire. In the said general meeting G. Fox made a long speech concerning the several states of men, but more especially for instruction of the ministers of the word, exhorting them at large to be circumspect in their station.

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After the meeting was over, there came party of horse with a constable, to seize upon G. Fox, who then was walking in J Crook's garden; and though somebody, when they came to the house, had told them G. Fox was there, yet they were so confounded that they came not into the garden to look for him, but went away without him.

Parting from thence, he came to London, where he heard that a Jesuit who was come over with an ambassador from Spain, had challenged all the Quakers, to dispute with them at the earl of Newport's house. G. Fox then let him know by some of his friends, that they would meet him; whereupon the Jesuit sent

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him word, he would meet with twelve of the wisest men they had. A while after he sent word, he would meet with but six and after that, he sent word again, he would have but three to come. Then G. Fox went, with Edward Burrough and one Nicholas Bond to the aforesaid house, and bade them to go up, and enter upon the discourse with the Jesuit, whilst he would be walking in the yard, and then come. up after them. He had advised them to state this question; Whether the church of Rome, as it now stood, was not degenerated from the true church which was in the primitive times, from the life and doctrine, and from the power and spirit that those believers were in? They having stated the question accordingly, the Jesuit affirmed, that the church of Rome now was in the virginity and purity of the primitive church. By this time G, Fox being come in, the Jesuit was asked, whether they had the Holy Ghost poured out upon them, as the apostles had? And he said, "No." Then said G. Fox, "If ye have not the same Holy Ghost poured forth upon you, and the same power and spirit, that the apostles had, then ye are degenerated from the power and spirit, which the primitive church was in." And he asked the Jesuit, what Scripture they had for setting up cloisters for nuns, abbies and monasteries for men, and for their praying by beads and to im

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ages, and for making crosses, for forbidding of meats and marriages, and for putting people to death for religion? "If," said he, ye are in the practice of the primitive church, in its purity and virginity, then let us see by Scripture, whenever they practised such things?" For it was agreed mutually, that both the Jesuit and the Quakers should make good by Scripture what they said. Then the Jesuit said, there was a written and an unwritten word. Which made G. Fox ask, what he called his unwritten word? And he answered, "The written word is the Scriptures, and the unwritten word is that which the apostles spake by word of mouth, which are all those traditions that we practise." Then G. Fox bid him prove that by Scripture; and the Jesuit alleged the words of the apostle, 2 Thess, ii. 5. "When I was with you, I told you these things:" That is " said he "I told you of nunneries and monasteries, of putting to death for religion, and of praying by beads and to images," &c This he affirmed to be the unwritten word of the apostles, which they told then, and had since been continued by tradition unto these times. Then G. Fox desired him to read that Scripture again, that he might see how he had perverted the apostle's words, since that which the apostle said there he had told them before, and was not an unwritten word, but was written down there; namely, that the man of

sin, the son of perdition, should be revealed before that great and terrible day of Christ, which he was writing of, should come. And therefore this was not telling them any of those things the church of Rome practised. Besides, the apostle in the third chapter of the said epistle told the church of some disorderly persons he heard were amongst them, busy bodies, who did not work at all, concerning whom he had commanded them by his unwritten word, when he was among them that if any would not work, neither should he eat; which now he commanded them again in his written words in this epistle, 2 Thess. iii.

The Jesuit now finding no other scriptural proof for the tradition of the church of Rome, let that point fall, and came to the sacrament of the altar, to prove the reality of which, he began with the paschal lamb, and the shew bread, and so came to the words of Christ, "This, is my body", and to what the apostle wrote to the Corinthians, concluding from thence, that after the priest had consecrated the bread and wine, it was immortal and divine, and that he who received it, received the whole Christ. To this G. Fox said, that the same apostle told the Corinthians, after they had taken bread and wine in remembrance of Christ's death, that they were reprobates if Christ were not in them. But that if the bread

they ate was Christ, he must of necessity have been in them, after they had eaten it. Besides if the bread and wine which the Corinthians ate and drank, was Christ's body, how then (continued he) hath Christ a body in heaven? And he also signified to him, that both the disciples, at the supper, and the Corinthians afterwards were to eat the bread and drink the wine in remembrance of Christ, and to shew forth his death till he came; which plainly proves, that the bread and wine which they took, was not his body. For if it had been his real body that they ate, then he had been come, and was then there present; and it would have been improper to have done such a thing in remembrance of him, if he had been then present with them: as he must have been, if that bread and wine, which they ate and drank, had been his real body. And as to the words of Christ, "This is my body." G. Fox told him, "Christ calls himself a vine, and a door, and is called in Scripture a rock; is Christ therefore an outward rock, door or vine?" "O, said the Jesuit, the words are to be interpreted." "So," said G. Fox "are those words. of Christ," "This is my body." And having thus stopped the Jesuit's mouth, he made this proposal: that, seeing he said that the bread and wine were immortal and divine, and the very Christ, and that whosoever received it, received the whole Christ;