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A45353
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An account of familism as it is revived and propagated by the Quakers shewing the dangerousness of their tenets, and their inconsistency with the principles of common reason and the declarations of Holy Scripture / by Henry Hallywell.
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Hallywell, Henry, d. 1703?
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1673
(1673)
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Wing H458; ESTC R25413
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52,525
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144
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as perfect slaves to their Pride Hatred Malice Covetousness and Lust as any people in the World One of these perfect Creatures was accused lately for getting his Maid with Child And when R. B. a Quaker advised with Lacock concerning a Marriage intended by him with a rich Woman Lacock told him it was not fit for him having begun in the Spirit to end in the Flesh and no sooner had R. B. desisted in his Suit but Lacock takes the woman and marries her Was not this a perfect Cheat The Quakers pretend very much to Inspiration and Prophesie and so did Marcus an old Heretic who abused many silly women under colour of conferring on them the gift of Prophecying The same Marcus had a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a familiar Spirit by which he brought himself into credit with his deluded Followers and I have had it confidently affirmed that about the first rise of the Quakers in the North of England several persons by Gloves and Ribbands and divers Charms and Incantations were really bewitched by them And doubtless many of their Quaking Fits wherein they fomed at the mouth trembled throughout all parts of their bodies hideously groaned their visages distorted and tumbling upon the ground were real possessions by the Devil It were easie to draw out the Parallel between them into a greater length but that I think it would be too burdensom and tedious to the Reader forasmuch as it is true of them what Irenaeus said of the Heretics of his time Per singulos dies affectant novum aliquid adinvenire That every day they affect to bring in some novelty and dangerous Opinion I shall rather chuse now to represent them under the Notion of Familists CHAP. II. Of the Authors of Familism and the Quakers Agreement with them in their Doctrin IT was not long after David George had disseminated and spread abroad his pernicious Errors but they were greedily sucked in and embraced by Henry Nicholas who being of a crafty and subtle Temper a plausible and winning Deportment as if the Stars had pointed him out for a grand Impostor carefully concealed his Doctrin at Munster in Westphalia where he was born and in the mean time diffused it by Letters and Emissaries instructed by him in many places of Germany forty miles distant from him so that the Sect of Familists grew and increased for a good while before it was known who was the Fomenter of it At last he removes to Amsterdam sets up the Trade of a Mercer and professes his Doctrin calling his Fraternity and Society The Family of Love and in his Writings gave a Symbol or Cognizance Charitas extorsit per H. N. as may be seen at the end of every Epistle or Treatise of his For his Person he was corpulent of a good Presence and Sanguine Temper shrewdly suspected of Incontinence with some Women in his house and 't is no wonder if he should not bathe his begodded Humanity as he phrases it of himself in carnal and sensual Pleasures when the great Arcanum and Mystery of his Doctrin was mere Sadducism that is A Denial of the Immortality of the Soul and a Life to come From Amsterdam he sails over into England and here divulges and communicates his destructive Errors among a company of Artificers and silly Women who being unstable and not well principled in the Rudiments of Christian Religion became an easie Prey to this white Wolf He wrote an Epistle to two Daughters of Warwick dissuading them from Regeneration by the Word of God read or preached calling it ceremonial elementish and false and laboured to persuade the Maids to a spiritual new birth through his Doctrin His Errors were afterwards discovered and refuted by J. Knewstub in a Book dedicated to Ambrose Earl of Warwick and printed at London by Order from the Queen 1579. He pretended a Revelation from the Angel Gabriel He affirmed that Christ was neither God nor Man but the State of his Doctrin and that every one of his illuminate Elders was Christ He held a Perfection without sin and that the whole History of Jesus Christ was not to be understood in a literal but Mystical and Allegorical sense that there is no Heaven Hell nor Judgment but what is in this Life and that all outward Ordinances in Religion are foolish and trifling things But I shall trouble my self no further to collect the Heads of his Doctrin since I shall take a general view of it by comparing the Doctrin of the Quakers and that of H. N. together SECT I. H. N. says that not only the Law of Moses but the Ministration of Christ and his Apostles were only temporary things instituted to bring men to the full and perfect Reige of the Spirit and as Children when they arrive to a good competency of understanding and can read well they throw away their horn-Horn-books and Primers so the Pedagogy of the Law and Gospel are to be cast aside when men come to the Spirit and this Dispensation of the Spirit is only in the Familists and in their doctrin And that this is the full sense of the Quakers appears from their own Books which they cunningly spread abroad to infect and poison the minds of weak and ignorant People In the Book called A Declaration of the Faith of Quakers penned by four of that Gang John Crook says thus We believe by the same gift of Grace that there are several Ministrations and several Operations according to 1 Cor. 12. and all by the same Spirit as before and after the Law by Moses and after by John the Baptist and Christ and his Apostles and in all those the Ministration had acceptance with God through the management of the Spirit and its rejection and dislike of God for the want thereof And by this Spirit were the Scriptures given forth and the Holy men of God did speak prophesie preach and pray as they were moved and for want of it the Letter did and doth kill And for the further appearance and pouring out of this Spirit answerable unto the work and service that God had for them to do they were to wait as Christ commanded his Disciples to do at Jerusalem to receive the promise of the Father for by this Spirit he that speaks speaks as the Oracles of God And therefore as it was the practice of the People of God in old time to wait for the moving and stirring of this Spirit that they might speak as it gave them utterance in the evidence and demonstration thereof so do this People called Quakers now and according to its moving in their hearts they minister according to the signification of the Spirit whereby they understand both what and when to speak and when to be silent Although this sweet sugared speech seem to be without deceit yet there is gall and wormwood mixed with it and in this new wine drawn from their own Cellar which lies deep in the lowest Region of the Body there is a
An ACCOUNT of FAMILISM As it is Revived and Propagated BY THE QUAKERS SHEWING The Dangerousness of their Tenets and their Inconsistency with the Principles of common Reason and the Declarations of Holy Scripture By Henry Hallywell 2 Pet. ii 1. There shall be false teachers among you who privily shall bring in damnable Heresies even denying the Lord that bought them and bring upon themselves swift destruction LONDON Printed for Walter Kettilby at the Bishops-head in S. Pauls Church-Yard 1673. To the Right Worshipful Sir John Covert Of Slaugham in the County of Sussex Knight and Baronet SIR THe daily and numerous Increase of the Heretical Generation of Quakers in these Parts made me a little more than ordinarily inquisitive into their Doctrins and Persuasions which I found not only destructive of all Civil Politie and Government but of Religion itself and the Worship of Almighty God established amongst us For what else can be expected from them who deny the Scripture to be the Word of God and our Rule and Guide in matters of Salvation And they being so well known to you as having had frequent Experience of their obstinate and perverse Humor in the Discharge and Execution of those Trusts and Employments committed to you under His most Sacred Majesty I could do no less than present you with this small Treatise that going under the Name and Protection of so worthy and accomplisht a Person as your self it may in some measure obtein its desired Effect by putting a stop to the growing Evil and confirming those who are not yet seduced in the Truth of their Profession and may testifie to the World how much I am Honoured Sir Your most Obliged and Affectionate Servant Henry Hallywell An Account of FAMILISM As it is Revived and Propagated BY THE QUAKERS CHAP. I. The Cognation and Agreement between the Quakers and other Antient and Modern Heretics OUr blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ came from Heaven and took upon him our human flesh and bloud and by his sufferings and death upon the Cross redeemed and purchased a Church with his own bloud and of this he took a singular care after his glorious ascension into Heaven and fully instructed and impowered his chosen Apostles to gather it from all parts and quarters of the world and they communicated to men the Word of Reconciliation and the Doctrin of eternal Salvation But the Devil who looked with an evil eye upon the Happiness of our first Parents in Paradise now envied mankind so great a Good and stirred up Persecutions against the Church of God round about And when it pleased the watchful Providence of God to give Peace to his Church by the Conversion of Emperors and Kings to the Faith of Christ the Devil then quickly shifted the Scene and what he could not do by open violence he endeavoured to effect by Subtilty and sought to undermine the Church by Schisms and Heresies and to destroy her by those who pretended to be her own children And this Course he holds on still and to come nearer to my present design it is the envy and hate the Devil bears against true Christianity that hath stirred up here in England an Heretical sort of People called Quakers to draw away and seduce men from the true Profession of Religion into damnable and pernicious Errors And because they borrow something of many Heresies which have been already in the world it will not be amiss to shew briefly in some particulars the Agreement that is between them Simon Magus of old gave out That he was God the Father And how much I pray did George Fox come behind that great Magician when before the Justices of the Peace at Lancaster he affirmed That he was equal with God And James Nailor was no bad Proficient in that cursed School when he said That he did witness that he himself was as holy just and good as God Menander affirmed himself to be sent from the invisible Regions to be the Saviour of Mankind And it is well known to the world that James Nailor asserted himself to be Christ For though his followers would mince the matter as being ashamed of his Blasphemy yet it is certain that he accepted of Hosanna and Divine Worship in the Streets of Bristol and when he was charged with it would return no other answer but in the words of our Saviour Christ Thou sayest it which is as much as I assent to it or acknowledge it Photinus denied the Trinity acknowledging only the Father and excluding the Son and the Holy Ghost And George Fox in the Book called Saul's Errand to Damascus affirms that there is no distinction of Persons in the Godhead And if at any time they are forced to a Confession of it they deliver it so ambiguously that it amounts to no more than what Arius himself affirmed as his Faith who when he was commanded by the Emperor Constantine to give a Confession of it delivered a Creed in words ours but in sense his own Socinus denied the satisfaction of Jesus Christ and looked upon his Death and Passion only as an Example And this is expresly found in their Book called Saul's Errand to Damascus And James Nailor in his Love to the Lost p. 56. says That the end for which Christ did suffer was to be a living Example to all Generations The Valentinians arrogated to themselves a knowledge beyond Christ and his Apostles And what else do the Quakers when they so impudently throw away the written Word of God and by a false application of the Spirit of God to themselves blind and delude the easie and credulous Vulgar with new-fangled Revelations Thomas Holbrow a Quaker to one that urged Scripture answered What dost thou tell me of the Scriptures which are no better to me than an old Almanack Fox and Hubber thorn in a Book called Truth 's Defence say The Scriptures are no standing Rule and 't is dangerous for ignorant people to read them Are not these as impudent Heretics when they shall slight and contemn the Dispensation of Jesus upon Earth as an empty insignificant thing and reject the Ordinances of Christ as childish being themselves under an higher Oeconomy even the Rule of the Spirit And no question but they are under the Rule and Power of the Spirit but 't is of that Spirit which works in the children of Disobedience even the Prince of the Power of the Air. The fore-mention'd Heretics the Valentinians boasted of themselves as the only Spiritual Persons calling themselves Perfect and all others who in the humility of their souls profess themselves sinners and study to serve God with fear Idiots and Ignorant People And does not the same Spirit still possess the Quakers who in an extravagant and proud humour affect the Title and Appellation of Perfection When God knows the very boasting of a thing they have so little of argues their weakness and folly and those that talk and vaunt highest of this Perfection among them are