by George Fox
Retrieved from the Digital Quaker Collection of Earlham School of Religion.

This passage is a portion of a longer epistle: The Saints, (or they that are born of the Spirit,) their Heavenly and Spiritual worship, Unity, and Communion; and the Ministers of the Spirit in the New Testament, preached the word of Life, which was in the beginning, which they had heard, seen, and handled, and brought the Church of Christ to the same word: and they brought the Church of Christ to have fellowship with the Father and his Son.
—Works, Volume 4, p.241.

Christ, the seed of the woman, is come and manifest in the male and female, who bruises the serpent’s head; and if the serpent doth put out his head, who is the seed of enmity and strife, and puffs up the high and conceited mind, with his jingling and sounding brass, and tinkling cymbals; but the seed of the woman, which is manifest in the male and female, will bruise his head, and into the pit and lake he must go, from whence he came, with all his followers. And I say again, to your own grace and truth, and the spirit and gospel of Christ, and the light, which is the life in Christ the word, that with this heavenly light, you all, males and females, may see your service for God and Christ, that you are to do and act for his glory, both in your men’s and women’s meetings and families, and other ways.

And therefore every one to your own, to your own, I say, the seed Christ in all, males and females; which is the heir of the promise, which is in this life and that which is to come; for the serpent set first on the woman, the weaker vessel; but now the seed of the woman is come into the females as well as in the males, that bruises the head of the serpent, and that makes the serpent so to rage, that Christ should be in the females as well as the males, to bruise his head, that he cannot set upon the weaker vessels, as he did upon Eve, and that now the women should have a meeting in Christ, and in his name, and through Christ, they should be too hard in and through Christ, for the serpent to bruise his head, and tread him under their feet through Christ; and he should be their redeemer, saviour, sanctifier, justifier, and their righteousness, and wisdom, and mediator, and so that they should be married to Christ that takes away their sin, and that Christ should be a faithful and true witness in the female as well as in the male. Oh! this is that which hath made the serpent, the old dragon, in his instruments, to rage against Christ the faithful witness in the females, because that he cannot deceive them as he did Eve; but he that is in the female, bruises the serpent’s head, Christ the faithful and true witness. So in Christ, male and female all are one; I say, in Christ the faithful and true witness, and they are true witnesses of God and Christ, and of what he hath commanded them, in his spirit, power, and wisdom, to do and act to his glory. And so the females in Christ are to be teachers of good things, and labourers in the gospel, and servants in and to the church, as Phoebe was.

The serpent cries nowadays, ‘to your own;’ but what is that but to deceive and to lead out to his own, and from the seed of the woman that bruises the serpent’s head, and is manifest in the males and females, in which seed the females do meet, and have their meetings, as well as the males; and therefore the serpent or old dragon is so wroth against Christ the seed of the woman, in the males and females, and his peaceable government, of the increase whereof there is no end. And the serpent casts forth his floods of lies, and calumnies, and reproaches against the seed of the woman, and they that do possess it; but the promise was, ‘The seed of the woman should bruise the serpent’s head,’ for he is out of the truth, who is the head of all wickedness, and who gives his power to the beast: so the raging beast and the foul spirit mixeth together against the lamb or seed of the woman, and crieth ‘to your own,’ to draw people from Christ, who is formed in them, and to bring them to fall under the dragon, and the beast, and the whore of Babylon’s power; but the lamb who is manifest in his males and females, will have the victory over the whore, beast, and the old serpent the dragon, and will overcome them. And in the lamb or seed of the woman, the females do meet as well as the males, and they are all one in him; though they are absent in the body, yet they are present in Christ, their own head and husband, salvation, and life eternal; and all such cry, ‘We are come to our own husband, and to our own city, heavenly Jerusalem, our one mother of us all, that are born again of the spirit, or from above.’ So we are come to our own, and do live of our own, from our own mother and husband, and do know our own husband, mother, and city, and do know our own work and service in the spirit, power, and wisdom of God and Christ, that God and Christ doth command us, that we might serve God and Christ in his new creation, and holy generation, and so to serve him with all that we have; and if the serpent do put forth his head, and spit forth his venom at this, Christ, the seed of the woman, will bruise his head.