Saunders, who professed the truth; but his wife, whose name was
Damaris, did possess it (she being a woman of great sincerity and
lively sense), and to that meeting also I usually went.

But though I took this liberty for the service of God, that I might
worship Him in the assemblies of His people, yet did I not use it
upon other occasions, but spent my time on other days for the most
part in my chamber, in retiredness of mind, waiting on the Lord.
And the Lord was graciously pleased to visit me, by His quickening
spirit and life, so that I came to feel the operation of His power
in my heart, working out that which was contrary to His will, and
giving me, in measure, dominion over it.

And as my spirit was kept in due subjection to this divine power, I
grew into a nearer acquaintance with the Lord; and the Lord
vouchsafed to speak unto me in the inward of my soul, and to open my
understanding in His fear, to receive counsel from Him; so that I
not only at some times heard His voice, but could distinguish His
voice from that of the enemy.

As thus I daily waited on the Lord a weighty and unusual exercise
came upon me, which bowed my spirit very low before the Lord. I had
seen, in the light of the Lord, the horrible guilt of those
deceitful priests, of divers sorts and denominations, who made a
trade of preaching, and for filthy lucre sake held the people always
learning; yet so taught them as that, by their teaching and
ministry, they were never able to come to the knowledge, much less
to the acknowledgment, of the truth; for as they themselves hated
the light, because their own deeds were evil, so by reviling,
reproaching, and blaspheming the true light, wherewith every man