I Told Them I Lived in that Life and Power

by George Fox

The time of my commitment to the house of correction being very near out, and there being many new soldiers raised, the commissioners would have made me captain over them; and the soldiers cried, they would have none but me. So the keeper of the house of correction was commanded to bring me before the commissioners and soldiers in the market place; where they offered me that preferment, as they called it, asking me, if I would not take up arms for the commonwealth against Charles Stuart?

I told them I knew from whence all wars arose, even from the lusts, according to James’s doctrine; and that I lived in the virtue of that life and power that took away the occasion of all wars. Yet they courted me to accept of their offer, and thought I did but compliment them. But I told them I was come into the covenant of peace, which was before wars and strifes were.

—from his Journal, 1651

Fox’s reference to James’s doctrine refers to the Letter of James 4:1-3. cf. John Woolman’s admonition to avoid the “seeds of war in these our possessions“.