Thomas Ellwood, who was born in 1639, in the reign of Charles the
First, carried the story of his life in this book to the year 1683,
when he was forty-four years old. He outlived the days of trouble
here recorded, enjoyed many years of peace, and died, near the end
of Queen Anne's reign, aged 74, on the first of March 1713, in his
house at Hunger Hill, by Amersham. He was eleven years younger than
John Bunyan, and years younger than George Fox, the founder of that
faithful band of worshippers known as the Society of Friends. They
turned from all forms and ceremonies that involved untruth or
insincerity, now the temple of God in man's body, and, as Saint Paul
said the Corinthians, "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God,
and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you," they sought to bring
Christ into their hearts, and speak and act as if Christ was within
governing their words and actions. They would have no formal
prayers, no formal preaching, but sought to speak with each other as
the Spirit prompted, soul to soul. They would not, when our plural
pronoun "you" was still only plural, speak to one man as if he were
two or more.
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