Excerpt from A Journal or Historical Account of the Life, Travels, Sufferings, Christian Experiences, and Labour of Love, in the Work of the Ministry, of That Ancient, Eminent, and Faithful Servant of Jesus Christ, George Fox, 1800 Thus the false church sprang up, and mounted the chair. But though she lost her nature, she would keep her good name of the Lamb's bride, the true church and mother of the faithful; constraining all to receive her mark, either in their forehead or right-hand, publickly or privately but in deed and in truth she was Mystery Babylon, the mother of harlots mother of those that with all their show and outside of religion, were adulterated and gone from the Spirit, nature, and life of Christ, and grown vain, worldly, ambitious, covetous, cruel, &c. Which are the fruits of the flesh, and not of the Spirit. Now it was that the true church fled into the wilderness, that is, from superstition and Violence to a retired, solitary, and lonely state; hidden and as it were out of sight of men, tho' not out of the world: which shews that her wonted Visibility was not essential to the being of a true church in the judgment of the Holy Ghost she being as true a church in the wilderness, though not as Visible and lustrous, as when she was in her former splendor of profession. In this state many attempts she made to return, but the waters were yet too high, and her way blocked up, and many of her excellent children in several nations and centuries fell by the cruelty of superstition, because they would not fall from their faith fulness to the truth. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.