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William Dewsbury The Life and Letters Of William Dewsbury —————————— Originally Entitled: The Life of William Dewsbury An Early and Eminent Minister of the Gospel in the Society of Friends Interspersed with Many Particulars Relating to the Views of that Society and the Sufferings of its Members for the Testimony of a Good Conscience by Edward Smith * * * Unabridged from the Friend's Library 1837-1850 by William Evans and Thomas Evans Formatting and Modernized Spelling by Jason R. Henderson The Editor's Prefatory Address The author of this volume having gone “the way of all the earth,” and yielded up his spirit to the God of the spirits of all flesh, it becomes my duty, as the individual into whose hands the manuscript was by him in a very peculiar manner consigned, not only to lay before my readers some of the circumstances under which the work now makes its appearance; but also to give some brief account of my beloved and lamented friend, whose unlooked-for translation from this state of being to a better, I trust will prove on the minds of many as a seal to his labor of love. However liable we all are in the present probationary condition, to be mistaken in our estimates of men and things, and even by the soothing snares of friendship in its purest forms, to be led away from that unerring balance of the sanctuary, the judgment of truth; yet surely there is some call upon me on the present occasion, to bear my testimony to the riches of that grace, by which my friend was what he was: and therefore I trust, that in attempting to perform this debt of love, I shall be preserved from speaking unduly of the creature, as well as from neglecting to ascribe the glory of every good word and work to that Divine Source, whose workmanship at the best we are, created in Christ Jesus unto good works. Eph. ii. 10. “Died Abner as a fool dies?” said David, when he lamented the death of a valiant man. And it has, in my best moments, when greatly divested of personal or selfish considerations of my own loss, even been cause of joy and gratitude to the Lord, who gives and takes away in his admirable discretion and good pleasure, that he saw fit to remove my dear friend, while “his bow abode in strength,” while he had his armor so evidently girt about him; when the spiritual weapons of the Christian's warfare were even in his hands,—in the strength of his time, in the clearness of his spirit; having been thus manifestly carried through to the precise completion of an undertaking that appeared to be laid upon him as his appointed duty, and about which he had thought it due to the cause of the Gospel of truth to lay out the energies and the prayers of his soul. And how was it, he was thus devotedly engaged in an almost unremitting manner for some months together, abridging himself of every lawful indulgence, and putting all other claims than this, of what- ever kind they might be, into the smallest compass that duty would allow of; without knowing, but as though he knew, the very hours of his time were to be just barely sufficient for this his last day's work. Truly, “the Lord's ways are higher than our ways, and his thoughts than our thoughts;” he knows the end from the beginning, and orders all things in harmony and wisdom; nor will he permit his upright, faithful, simple-hearted children, who look up to him for counsel and strength in all their steppings, materially to contravene his purposes, or widely to deviate from fulfilling, even in the midst of all their manifold weaknesses, his holy will. He keeps them in the hollow of his hand, he hides them under the shadow of his wing, he heals all their backslidings, he overrules everything that concerns them for their good, turning all to his own glory. These musings of a mind, that has abundant cause to observe and extol the mercies of Him, who is “wonderful in counsel and excellent in working,” will not I trust be deemed irrelevant or unseasonable. 2 Ever since I have been capable of appreciating the purity and excellence of “the Truth as it is in Jesus,” the character and productions of those departed ancients, who first lifted up a standard to the nations in these latter days, altogether so congenial, as I believe, with the spirit and injunctions of our Holy Redeemer, have been a subject of deep interest to me. The author of the present volume had been for years one with me in entertaining this interest: we had often communed together on that remarkable era, when the Society of Friends first became known as a distinct church; and we had many times recipro- cated the firm conviction, that as the professors of the Christian name come back to the simplicity and spirituality of the Gospel, such writings and such characters are likely to be more duly valued than has hitherto been the case. If this was infatuation, it was a natural, an honest, a consistent infatuation. We have need every one of us, to be fully persuaded in our own minds respecting that which makes for peace and edification in our belief and practice; for, “he that doubts is condemned if he eat,” and “what- soever is not of faith is sin.” Certainly, had I any real misgiving as to those things which may be known of God, and to which through education or otherwise I found myself conforming, it would seem due to my own soul and to that religious Society among whom I walked, to take means of obtaining a solid and genuine satisfaction. In the spring of the past year, I communicated to my beloved friend, the author, a plan that had matured on my mind, of reviving the writings of the early Friends in a form accessible to their successors of every class; believing too, that many of these productions would be acceptable to the spiritual followers of the Lord Jesus Christ in general, whether themselves prepared or not to follow out our Christian testi- monies to their full extent. My plan was almost anticipated by my friend, and cordially united with; and in the further digestion of my arrangements, he was always anxious to afford me all the assistance and encouragement in his power. In the course of our frequent interchange of sentiment on this subject, he conveyed to me the great value he placed upon the character of William Dewsbury, and the strong desire he had to see a memoir of this worthy, upheld in a manner consistent with his standing and the line of his testimony. I besought him to take the matter home with him, and dwell upon it, and see if this engagement did not devolve upon himself. During part of the summer and autumn of the year, we were separated from each other; when, on my return from a journey, he produced the manuscript of this volume. Still, there was much to be done to it, before it could be prepared for the press; and after bestowing further diligence in perfecting it, in the freedom of unreserved friendship, he committed the whole to me, charging me not to spare such suggestions as I believed would tend to the object of his heart. Some alterations I had proposed before it thus came into my hands, and my meaning was uniformly accepted; and I have good reason to believe from our long intimacy, that such corrections as have been made since his removal, would have been adopted equally with those that were submitted to his eye. This course I deemed to be only justice to his memory and to myself, in carrying forward the publication, under the peculiar circumstances of the case. Some channels of inquiry for additional infor- mation even then remained unsearched; these I have, since the author's decease, looked into, and the result of my endeavors is marked out in the ensuing pages to the notice of the reader, by brackets enclosing such fresh matter. With regard to the old work, from which the epistles and some other papers are now reprinted, the title 3 thus stood:—“The faithful testimony of that ancient servant of the Lord, and minister of the everlasting Gospel, William Dewsbury, in his books, epistles, and writings, collected and printed for future service. London, 1689.” Like many of the works of that day, it is so indifferently got up, that the correct import of some passages is not very plain, and even admits of misinterpretation; and as to those autograph letters of William Dewsbury's that have come under my notice, while the writing is for the most part difficult, the construction of the sentences is very far more so. On this account, it was requisite to make such transpositions and slight emendations as might clear from obscurity the truths intended to be set forth, and render them capable of appreciation. It would seem scarcely needful for me to observe to members of our own religious communion, that the collected works of William Dewsbury were published with the express concurrence of the Society, and that they have been from time to time referred to, both by them and by their adversaries, from that day to the present, as conveying doctrine and exhortation well approved by the body at large. With respect to such comments on these principles as appear interspersed under the author's own hand throughout the present volume, I trust they will very uniformly be found harmonizing in no ambiguous manner with the tenor of the rest; that he has put no false gloss by fair words upon these ancient, unalterable principles, but has with all honesty and good judgment upheld and illustrated them.—Here I would eagerly express some of the warmth of desire, which has often pervaded my heart while engaged in revising these sheets, that the professing members of a church, so distinguished as ours has been by the protection and nurture of her Head and Husband, may be encouraged by observing how memorably He has stood by her, and by all her simply obedient children whose souls have been true to Him:—He has indeed borne them as on eagles' wings.
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