Mission with Prophetic Power: The Journal of John Woolman (SRSC 12)

Chapter 6: The Reform of Church and State (1763–1768)

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And they shall come and shall see my glory” (Isa 66:18). Here the sufferings of Christ, and His tasting death for every man, and the travels, sufferings, and martyrdom of the apostles and primitive Christians in laboring for the conversion of the Gentiles, were livingly revived in me, and according to the measure of strength afforded I labored in some tenderness of spirit, being deeply affected among them. The difference between the present treatment which these Gentiles, Black persons,* receive at our hands, and the labors of the primitive Christians for the conversion of the Gentiles, were pressed home, and the power of truth* came over us, under a feeling of which my mind was united to a tender-hearted people in these parts. The meeting concluded in a sense of God’s goodness toward His humble, dependent children. Ninth of Tenth Month.—My heart has often been deeply afflicted under a feeling that the standard of pure righteousness is not lifted up to the people by us, as a Society,* in that clearness which it might have been, had we been as faithful as we ought to be to the teachings of Christ. And as my mind has been inward to the Lord, the purity of Christ’s government has been made clear to my understanding, and I have believed, in the opening* of universal love, that where a people who are convinced of the truth of the inward teachings of Christ, are active in putting laws in execution which are not consistent with pure wisdom, it has a necessary tendency to bring dimness over their minds. My heart having been thus exercised* for several years with a tender sympathy toward my fellow members, I have within a few months past expressed my concern* on this subject in several meetings for discipline.