many Books and these not little small Treatises but large Volumes well digested and handsomly dress'd with fit Expressions Since we may observe that others no despicable Sects having discovered in them their own Image have embraced them for Brethren and Kinsmen such as the Quietists that not so long ago did first appear in Campania in Italy and the Pietists so lately sprung up in Germany of which last we know certainly they are daily insinuating themselves and their Doctrines into the hearts of the People and influencing their Minds even in this our own Land and since it is uncertain what may be the issue of all this I say upon all these Considerations I count it absolutely necessary to make a narrow search after them in order to understand what manner of Men they be what Actions have been done by them from what beginnings and by what progress they have risen to this height and what are their Tenets and Sentiments that have so long lain in Obscurity And this is the more necessary to be done now in this Interim of time while the Memory of these things are fresh in our Minds lest by the progress of time that being worn out and defaced there be no means left of attesting what went before and thus should we remain doubtful and uncertain of their Actions and Tenets not knowing where to fix the Controversie and whoever would pretend to examine any of these Matters must after the manner of the Andabatae fight hood-wink'd of which sort of procedure arising from the same defect we have a great many Instances both in the ancient and later Churches Since therefore I have had the Fortune of a long time to be familiarly acquainted and much conversant with these Men call'd Quakers and that in many places and have thus had occasion to know so much of them both from themselves and their chief Teachers and also from Men of our Profession who were well acquainted with all their Deeds and Actions and besides many of their Writings and Manuscripts of which some are in Print some not having fallen into my hands I thought it would be an acceptable Enterprize calculated for the exigency of these our Times and also useful to Posterity to write upon this Subject In performance of which I shall pick out what seems most necessary and directly conducive to the management of the same and that with all brevity and conciseness imaginable not determining any thing through Precipitancy Love to a Party Prejudice of Opinion or the influence of any Passion whatsoever leaving it for every Man to judge as he thinks fit of their Actions Tenets Customs and manner of Worship These Men are called Quakers in the English Language Which Name was given 'em by their mocking Enemies as a note of Ignominy and Contempt for that when they are about contemplating Sacred things that same very moment that the Spirit overtakes 'em through the commotion of their Minds and agitation of their Bodies they presently fall a trembling throwing themselves on the ground oft-times froathing at the mouth and scrieching with a horrible noise And though they seem to resent this Reproachful Title yet they are not so averse either to the Name or to the Thing it self but that they 'll acknowledge that both do in some measure quadrate to them For they confess themselves to be Quakers nor do they deny that while they go about Sacred Things submitting themselves wholly to the Divine Will and quietly waiting upon God praying within themselves for the Breathings and Operation of his Spirit and with deep sighs and groans are importunately waiting the Effusion of the Spirit that upon his first approach they fall a trembling and are hurried out of themselves by the commotions of their Minds and disturbances of Body occasioned by the resistance of the sinful stubborn Flesh which when they have overcome and are return'd to themselves again and begin to be sensible of the Illuminations and Comforts of the Spirit then they are transported into Raptures of Joy which occasion these Quaking and Extatical Motions of Body and Mind They add likewise that the Spirit of God while speaking in the Scriptures denominates the sincere fearers of God and lovers of his Spirit and Word Tremblers requiring of them so to be and pronouncing them blessed if such Wherefore since they do not reject this their Name but rather account it honourable if rightly understood I shall define them after the same manner especially since they have not yet obtain'd a peculiar and proper Name whereby they can be distinguish'd from all others Another Name generally given to them is that of Enthusiasts Where it is likewise to be observed that many do reckon them among the number of those Enthusiasts that in Ancient History are mentioned to have been among the Primitive Christians as also in the last Century But these Men are not satisfied to be so called in any sense for besides say they that this name of Enthusiasts is oft given to those that by the Calumniators themselves would be accounted Men of Worth and Dignity and that even those who are so busie in fixing this Ignominious Name upon them do oft-times come to be branded with the same themselves Besides all this say they this Name tends openly to the discredit and dishonour of all Christians whom the Spirit of God in his Word declares to be influenc'd by the Spirit nay and requires it so strictly of them as that without this irradiation of the Spirit they can be none of Christ's Now these Enthusiasts that were of Old Times and likewise those that have been since did arrogate to themselves a peculiar familiar Spirit and contrary to the dictates of the Holy Spirit would under the conduct of that break forth into Tumults Seditions and Wars whereas these Men called Quakers pretend to be possess'd and guided by no other Spirit than what is common unto all Christians nay and are so far from bringing Evil upon any Man that they will not so much as resist force by force asserting all manner of Self-defence to be unjust except what is meerly Verbal and even that must be free from Anger For this is usual amongst all that even those who have invented a new Model of Doctrine and Life though what they maintain be never so new and lately invented yet they publish it for an Opinion of the Ancients or at least founded on their Doctrines for though none pretends so to confine the Truth and set such Bounds to Goodness that no new thing should be accounted true or good yet Antiquity adds a value and respect for that we commonly judge the ancientest Opinions to be the truest and best and hence it is that even those Tenets that are of themselves intrinsically good do purchase more respect and a better reception by pretended Antiquity and Custom than by all their real worth The Quakers therefore say they derive their Name though not very sollicitous what Name be given them
and other things which same if any alike were not yet some in gathering of those Profits were so severe and hard-hearted that they reduced the poorer sort to beggery such as were able and not willing and whom they could not bring to Reason they subdued by Force of whom they said they were driven thereunto from the only desire of Lucre and Gain and so lived upon their Ministry worse than Porters Watermen and such sort of rough Fellows and that they were always craving and that they went as often as they could to other Assemblies of Men and to them especially from whom they hoped to receive most Advantage Another thing against which these Men were very Angry and highly complained was this That there was and is still such among those Men who some of them cannot endure some of their own People and Citizens differing from them in Matters of Religion though very docible and upon better Information ready to obey but throw them out and eject them others they vexed tormented and fined and those same Persons did this who for such severity had themselves called upon God and Men to bear Witness and when they were able shook off that Yoke from their Necks and esteemed and do still esteem this Liberty as a great Blessing of God of which two things the Quakers did so much the more complain because they were at this time most touched and afflicted therewith To this came to be added afterwards the Complaint and Lamentation of their Fellows and Companions in New-England That there were Brownists there who injured them various ways and put some of them to Death These being the same things which these Men did more particularly discommend and so much charge upon the Churches of England their Native Country But those things which they generally and universally blamed as well in these same as in other Protestants abroad were these That this indeed is the Doctrine Faith and Profession of all those who are called by this specious Name and love and take delight to be so called that upon the differences being taken away by the Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and the bright appearance of the Gospel that was between the beloved Nation of the Jews and the rest of Mankind whom by way of singularity and distinction they called Gentiles the Grace of God hath shined upon all Men and that this coming of Christ and those desireable and saving Tydings ought now to be preached throughout the whole World and that this one thing was proposed unto all Men who are made partakers of Christ and of the Gospel that as much as lies in them both by Words and good and pious Works they gain over and present unto Jesus Christ and to God and bring into a salvable state all those who are yet Christless And moreover that all would have and teach this that Circumcision being taken away from among the People of God by Christ Jesus which was of Old observed by the Jewish Nation and that the External Worship of that Nation being overthrown to which this same Circumcision was annext that now these are circumcised who have that which Circumcision did then prefigure and typifie and that which External Worship did represent and that which all the Law and the Prophets did presignifie and promise should be brought to pass and accomplished by Jesus Christ and that there must needs have been those then who were true and real Jews and such as were in Covenant with God and that there are even now true Jews that do heartily and sincerely Worship God and that these are truly Christians chosen by Christ and made one with those Ancient Jews that were so united to God and therefore accepted with him who serve God in the Spirit and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the Flesh and that this now is pure Religion and undefiled before God and the Father to bridle the Tongue so as to speak ill of vilifie ruine no Man but charitably to Teach Edifie and Help ones Neighbour and besides this to visit the Fatherless and Widows and to help as much as may be the poor miserable and distressed and over and above to keep ones self undefiled from the World But here did these Men interpose and raise a clamour and noise saying That the Protestants did nothing less than any one of these things neither did they stick to say that all that Multitude was a dead Body or a living Carcase bearing only the name of Christians and this they said they would demonstrate thus pretending That all Protestants their Rulers each Member of their Churches were so little concerned about that Grace of God that was brought in by Jesus Christ and is daily offered by him in the Gospel that they had scarce one serious thought of their own and not at all of the Salvation of others and that they either declined to do any thing or did what they could most slightly towards the Instructing of their own People confuting of others convincing of Strangers and enlightning of Foreign and Remote Countries and Nations where a gross Ignorance of Mind and a debauched Life caused hideous Darkness and for delivering of them out of the Jaws of Death for the destroying of the Kingdom of Satan and promoting of the Kingdom of Christ in all the Parts of the Earth as if the name of a Christian which they avouch were enough and that that Happy Life were granted and tyed to them by a certain private and sure Law and that others were to look unto themselves Moreover that all of them did follow in those things which belong to the Knowledge and Observation of Divine things not the Holy Spirit who is the true and genuine Master and Guide whom indeed they knew not but their own and others Instructions or their own Vnderstanding and Sense drawn if it happen so well with them from the single and bare Reading of the Scriptures moreover that they did herein flatter themselves that they bare in their Mouths the Name of Christ held Communion with him and partaked of his Benefits but were therein miserably mistaken in that they knew not who this Christ is what it was to have Communion with him and what his Benefits were or that they by no means spake from their hearts those things they talked of neither were they actuated in those things that were done by them or which befel them from an inward Principle Motion and Instinct and moreover that they put their trust in Ceremonies External Rites Sacraments and bodily Exercise Publick and Private which profiteth nothing and that so they embraced a Shadow neglecting the Thing it self Lastly That all of them laying aside the Love they owed one to another and passing by that Pity and Concern which they ought to have for the adverse and troublesome Concerns of their Brethren and Friends they were so divided and distracted among themselves as well privately with wranglings Strifes and Contentions and that often-times
Prank when Naylor was stigmatized with an hot Iron in the Forehead and not running of his own accord but haled held Naylor with his hand while the Brand was a doing and presently after licks the Wound with his Tongue as if it had been some Sacred and Religious thing though indeed Naylor always excused himself herein that he did nothing to an ill intent and purpose or suffered to be done unto him but did always and particularly then when that was done unto him condemn him for his Folly that he had so much vain and foolish Honour done him by the People and that he suffered justly and deservedly for that Crime and Offence and acknowledged that he was under the Vindictive hand of God for it and 't is a wonderful thing that amidst so many and such great Torments he was not heard to pour out the least sigh or groan Besides while all these things were doing many of the Quakers sent Letters daily to Naylor and did incessantly rebuke him that he would be so audacious as to do such a Wickedness and to advise and exhort him that he would do his utmost to correct and amend his Fault and at length forsake it Though either these very Advisers or others of that Society did again as well as Naylor defend all that was done of Naylor by publick Papers and concerning Naylor by his Friends and for this purpose they alledged divers Sayings and Examples of the Holy Scripture and would adapt them for the Proof hereof And indeed Naylor did continue all the remainder of his days in the same manner affected towards the Religion of the Quakers and also wrote Books whereby he endeavoured to promote his and their Religion among other People I have said before that George Fox and his Followers were clapped up in Prison and detained there for a long time because of their publishing and dispersing of their Libels and Pamphlets among the Common People Fox in another Pamphlet did so clear himself of all Crime herein that he affirmed that there was nothing else taught in those Pamphlets but that it was the Duty of all Men aright to consider the Light that shone in their Consciences and that he might extenuate the Suspicion had of them he so exaggerates and amplifies their Sufferings as if the cry of his and his Friends Blood reached up even as far as Heaven and drew on the Anger and Vengeance of the Almighty upon them for it Just at this time when Fox was not yet set free from his Imprisonment and the Afflictions he complained of which he cryed out were so hard and not to be endured came a Pamphlet abroad at London without any Name indeed to it yet without all doubt George Fox was the Author thereof That Libel opened and explained the causes why and for which the Quakers ought to refuse deny and reject these Earthly Teachers by whom they meant the Ministers of the Publick Churches The Author did in that Libel blame and accuse all Pastors and Teachers upon the same foot without distinction as of other Vices so of Falsity Deceivings Frauds Lyes in as much as that they pursued Lyes for Gain or Favour and for Covetousness sake brought Men to their bow with hypocritical words and adulterated the Holy Scriptures yea that they were guilty of Enchantment Magick and Necromancy The Accuser ought to have a good Memory and take heed lest while he is falsly and foolishly Accusing of others he do give occasion for himself to be derided of Men and be very nigh a-kin to the very same Crime he lays to their charge The thing it self manifests that the Author of this Libel had an evil purpose therein in that they also blamed and severely carped at these things in their Adversaries because they said that the Gospels of Matthew Mark Luke and John were the Gospel that they said the Gospel was light the Scripture saying that Christ was the Light the Apostle taught that the Bodies of Believers were the Temples of God and of the Holy Spirit but that they taught that those Temples were Steeple-Houses and material Buildings which were made of Stone and Wood and many such things there were not spoken but written cunningly for to stir up the ignorant Multitude and provoke Men of a wicked and evil Disposition by these Practices which were not much different from a Malignant Spirit and flagitious lust of Mind or furious Rage and Madness and thus did these Men again and again stir up the Envy Wrath and Hatred of their Adversaries Moreover seeing that the same Men especially being encited thereto by these Heralds and Enticers did not only not cease but went on more and more in their rash ways and inconsiderate boldness not only to Preach about and to direct their Discourses to People in the Markets and such like places but also to interrupt the Ministers Preaching in the Churches with their inveighing Interruptions and Bablings or afterwards to make a noise excusing themselves at the same time according to their usual manner with this one Sentence constantly That they were excited by the Spirit hereunto Hence all sorts of Men increased in Indignation and Bitterness against them and Severity in Punishing of them This happened from the Year Fifty Six for the two following Years For so indeed it came to pass that not only they who spoke what they pleased in Publick places but even they also who were not wont to go hear the Sermons usually preached in the Churches or had Sermons of their own in their own Houses were some of them fined some cast into Prison some whipped and then forbid their Homes and thrust into Banishment of whom some were so stiff and obstinate being as it were Conquerors over Fear and Pain that they returned again one was George Bayley who came back twice who were as often whipped for the same the same was done in the Towns of Sherborn Longhorton c. and in Dorchester the chief Town of the County it self The Quakers wrote that the Ministers of the Churches themselves did not only in their Sermons that were adapted to stir up and inflame the People excite the Magistrates and more especially the credulous and headlong Multitude so far as that they should either drive away the Quakers or hinder them to hold their Meetings but also that they did come themselves among those that were armed for to disturb their Meetings as well among the Publick Guard as the Promiscuous Multitude but there are no deeds so much noted and enlarged upon by them in all the Monuments of their Writings as those done by the Scholars and Students of the University of Oxford against them If the Quakers did at any time enter into the Churches they fell upon and severely treated them for their boldness in coming to the sight of those Youths who were themselves most bold and ready for all wanton tricks As often as the Quakers held their Conventicles and that it came to the Ears
who extoll'd the Holy Scriptures paying all Honour and Deference to the same who yet would cry up and extol that Profession of Faith and Manners that they had suck'd from these very Scriptures And that they were so destitute and ignorant of that Holy Spirit that endited them and so great strangers to that Purity of Life and Conversation which is so oft recommended in the Scriptures Fox in this his Solitary Retirement proposed nothing else to himself but doing Service to others designing and purposing some time to be useful in Informing and Instructing not a few by undertaking a Publick Ministry for the Salvation of many And thus he reasoned with himself nay he said it was demonstrated to his Spirit from God himself that though School and College Learning the Natural and acquir'd Qualities and Gifts of the Mind those Arts Men call Liberal and Ingenuous and the Knowledge of Tongues were very useful Accomplishments and Adornments for a Theologue or any invested with that Sacred Office yet the Spirit of God was to be their chief Teacher and Conducter and the Operation of this Divine Spirit though without Learning is of more avail than Learning without the assistance of the Spirit However he did not so totally banish himself from all Company but that he admitted sometimes those that came to him nay and would sometimes of his own accord go to those he thought Men of Integrity and who seem'd to walk reverently towards God and confer with them Sometimes he called on the Ministers of the Gospel such as he thought fit or that he heard did excel in Doctrine and Piety and communicated to them his Sentiments He always so ordered his Discourse that what he spoke was about the condition or state either of Men in general or of Christians and this was the whole and the only Tenor and Context of all his Discourses that the condition of all those we call Christians was such as that all their Religion was in their Tongues in so much that their Ministers and Pastors who dispensed unto them the Divine Word were Men that minded nothing but making a discovery of their Learning and Knowledge and a slight discharge of their Office nay that proposing nothing to themselves but the bare external Reward were very Hirelings unto Men. This his way of Discoursing occasioned his unwelcom Reception among many There was at that time one Nathanael Stevens Minister of the Church at Dreton where George Fox was born who used not only to exspect George's coming to him but oft-times prevented him looking on him as one of his Flock and subject to his Discipline Whom therefore Fox as his Custom was had made his Reflections on him and his Parish accusing both the Minister and the Flock for being ignorant of Christianity and far estranged from it in their Lives vindicating himself to be the Restorer and Conducter appointed for the Recovery of fallen Religion Mr. Stevens would nevertheless leave him to himself as being neither grieved nor angry at him This same Year George went up and down from Town to Town supplying his Necessities in every place he came to with the Exercise of his Trade contenting himself with a little and not apprehensive of Poverty He was much troubled with Melancholy a Disease very incident and in a manner Natural to all that Nation which at that time increased mightily among them and was now become very common George complain'd that he was tormented without intermission with the terrible and mighty Tentations of Satan which drove him almost to despair insomuch that he sometimes wish'd for Death rather than Life And in every place he came to he made his Address to the Pious and Godly and sometimes to the Ministers of Churches complaining of his miserable condition imploring some help and comfort from them But when he had thus made known to them the anguish of his Soul some were not willing to undertake so difficult a Cure or thought it necessary to use Medicine for his Body as well as his Soul others advised him to have recourse to the Word of God Faith in him and serious and frequent Prayer for the removal of his Malady in fine he could meet with none that could give him any Satisfaction or Relief then would he as all such afflicted People use to do when they cannot meet with their desires rail against them brand them for unskilful and ignorant Physicians spreading Slanders and Reproaches against them up and down the Country From this time forth he wholly withdrew from all Society or Communication with the Visible Church and on Religious days went alone into the Fields or some retired place carrying along with him his 〈◊〉 and spending the day in Reading and Meditating Nay he spent the best part of his time in Study and Contemplation And both at that time and in the succeeding part of his Life he frequently told how he was at sometimes possess'd with the Divine Spirit how many Dreams and Visions came upon him what Answers he had from Heaven to his Petitions as also that many things foreseen by him and foretold to him were lock'd up in his Breast And that he was daily taught from above and instructed in what relates to the Doctrine and Life of a Christian sometimes in one part of it sometimes in another sometimes what was wicked and disallowable at other times what was good and to be sought after and all these things was he to teach and explain to Men as being sent of God for that purpose After this he grew and increased daily It happened not precisely at this time but a little after when he was Teaching at Nottingham for some things though distant in time are to be connected together having designed to comprise this History in as compendious Bounds as is possible that he was ravish'd into Paradise by the Spirit with a Flaming Sword where he was form'd like unto Adam such as he was while yet in Innocence so that he clearly perceived and understood the most profound and obscure things having the whole Creation laid open and explain'd to him how that Names were given to every Creature suited to their Natures Vertues and Perfections which made him advise with himself whether or no he should undertake the Profession of Medicine bending his thoughts and care to the exercise of the same for the good and benefit of Mortal Men. For it happened in Leicester that God discovered to him how far the Galenical Tribe was estrang'd from Divine Wisdom that Wisdom which contriv'd and fram'd all things so that it was impossible for them to understand the Natures and Constitutions of things But withal the Heavenly Oracle did likewise insinuate that it was possible to reform this corrupted Art and settle it on a surer Foundation if so be that Artists before they undertake to Administer Medicine to the Sick would first apply themselves to Divine Wisdom and then accommodate their Remedies according to its Rules Fox did in every
with Grief and Compassion discover those Vices neither did they as became Christians gently and discreetly advise the wandring and such as were out of the way and bring them kindly back again but did most bitterly and invidiously relate all things and cast all manner of Reproaches upon those Churches and as it were set upon the Men in an Hostile manner and drew together and united into a Mutual Confederacy in this War though no ways injured nor provoked nor indeed entertained with an hard word and this in such a manner as that all were frightned by them from the Community of such Churches and from the entrances into them and set them such Examples as were much to be shunned that there is no doubt to be made as concerning them who thus raged but that they acted more from a desire and study of Novelty and Glory than from a sincere and pious Mind so that that Man who blames the Works of another ought to take heed lest he be deceived himself and to see 〈◊〉 while he is applying of Remedies for one Evil other Evils arise therefrom thus it was with the Brownists and Independants many years before who first separated themselves from the Church of England because of the many Defects and Abases therein and afterwards from the rest of the Reformed Churches by reason also of the unworthiness and want of Diligence which they imagined they saw in them and even so now the Quakers supposing they had the same Causes and Reasons for what they did undertook the same thing and that in such a manner that supposing those fore-runners had not done enough they began a new Schism and did altogether constitute and pursue a new Doctrine among themselves a new way of Living and a new Church these they testified to be the causes they had whenever they spake of their Undertakings or conferred with others or appeared before the Magistrates and that in plain and direct words and upon this Head did many of them write Books and Pamphlets which upon such an occasion are much more efficacious and prevalent than larger Tracts among which the most remarkable were published by Fox the Inventor and Introducer of these things and Howgil Pennington and Whitehead which last three were however more moderate in their Writings than Fox was to say nothing of the rest of them These Pieces they also translated into other Languages and dispersed through other Countries Now I am come to that which has occasioned me to dwell so largely upon this Subject And because I have spoken of that Religion and course of Life which these Men went about to overthrow I have also deemed it seasonable and necessary distinctly to set forth what manner of Life and Doctrine that was which they after that they were increased to a Multitude and so much polished and instructed under so many Masters and Teachers then set up and which is now maintained by all their Followers For the Tenour of their Doctrine was the same as that of others that they who framed it should in process of time from smaller beginnings polish and reduce the same into a greater Decorum and Order Especially in that they were more intent at first upon the destroying of the Religion of others than upon erecting any new one of their own and that they were at this time more given to an Active than a Contemplative Life or than to that which consists in much Meditation Enquiry and strength of Understanding thus judging with themselves that to be a Christian was not to understand profound things nor to speak of great Matters but to live from whence as in former times so also now these Men can no otherwise be compared than with most Professors of Religion be it what it will that they are endued with greater Love and Zeal for their Religion than a knowledge of it and even many Teachers of the Quakers themselves not excepted But yet there were some from the beginning as there are many at this day that gave a good Account of their Religion and explained it Now the Doctrine of these Men consisted chiefly of four kinds the first whereof was the Principle of Religion another the Subject of the Divine Benefits the third the embracing of them the fourth and last the way and manner of Communion The first sort therefore was that which belonged to the Principle and Foundation of true and saving Knowledge this with them was a clear and distinct Revelation of the Holy Ghost either without the written Word to wit by Speech or some Apparition or Dreams or by the written Word and either this or that which we call the Holy Scriptures or by some other or else some certain way which is equivalent to the Word For the Holy Scriptures as we take that Word is not to them a perpetual Medium and such as is absolutely necessary and the only and compleat Rule and Form of Faith and Manners and here you may easily see how far they differ from those who while they own the Scripture take away the Spirit and substitute Reason in the room thereof and how much from those who acknowledge the Scripture as the only necessary Instrument and the sole Rule of Faith and Manners And that the Assistance of the Spirit is required towards our having a certain knowledge of the Divine Will and performing of the same The Second Head contained the Subject on which the Divine Benefits are bestowed concerning which they thus judged and determined That all Mankind by the Sin and Fall of Adam were utterly depraved and lost so destitute of strength and in so desperate and forlorn a condition as that they were unable to think of that which is good but that God did so universally love Mankind as that he gave his Son Jesus Christ and constituted him to be a Peace-maker between God and Man Hence God bestowed upon all Men a new Birth Himself his Son his Holy Spirit the Light and Word within and did by the same so stir up their Minds even every one of them in his true Way and peculiar Measure so as to understand and perceive their Misery and did so excite them as that they at length sought God and were converted unto him which Light was yet effected sometimes by the Word from without and lively Preaching but then it was they said that that Light and Word was to be received of Men when they did not resist the Divine Operation but received it and being stirred up by God they gave way to his Impulse and Incitement but here seeing there was none to whom the Doctrine of the purer Protestants upon this Head was known and to whom the Opinions of such as savoured of Pelagianism or in some part inclined to them were not unknown who did not think that the Quakers also pursued and imitated some such thing as these last mentioned the Quakers hereupon cryed out that they were much in the wrong since indeed their meaning was that either the
Humane Nature was not so depraved or that there was some Natural Light remaining whereby they may free themselves from that Vitiosity and that God indeed joyns himself to such as do their endeavour and helps them so as that it is not the meer Grace of God but in some sort Merit in Man and that either some Word or somewhat else is bestowed of God to this end whereas the Quakers have no such thoughts The next Article consisted of such Benefits which are peculiar to those whom they said did not resist the foresaid Illumination but obeyed it for when this Article is known and that which all Protestants teach concerning this matter none will deny but that there is a great deal of difference between the Opinion of Protestants and these Men of whom I now speak apart for this is that which they would have that Christ having performed his Obedience and suffered Death obtained for all Men indifferently to be brought into such a state wherein they are capable of receiving of Christ into them which when it comes to pass that then Christ who is altogether Holy and Just exists in that Person and lives and operates and that by that means the same Person the Justice of Christ existing and operating in him becomes himself Just to wit that the Depravation and Malice of his Nature is gradually unlearnt and laid aside and greater proficiency daily made in Justice and Goodness but yet so as that he may always sin backslide and fall into his former Darkness But he may also arrive at that Perfection so as not to sin at all neither can that constancy in Good fail and cease and seeing no one is happy but he that knows himself to be so this same Man is even then fully conscious of his own Felicity The last Division of this their Doctrine was this and which consists in the Measures and Mediums of receiving the Benefits by which how much also these Men differ from those of whom I have spoken will from hence be no hard matter for us to Judge For they would allow no other Mediums and Aids herein than watchfulness of Mind and attention to that Light which shines in the Heart of every Man and to the Oracles of the Holy Spirit in the Scripture or the Admonitions and Exhortations of Spiritual Persons And thus indeed did they receive and admit of the Ministry of the Gospel but such a Ministration as every one ought to undertake though in a different degree being impelled thereunto by the Holy Spirit alone without the Vocation of Men without Price and Reward and that even Women themselves should not be excluded from Teaching This they would now have and require that all Christians ought frequently to meet at certain Times and Places to the end that they might Worship God and the Father with Brotherly and united Minds and Instruct and Admonish one another to the Observation of the Laws of God and Men and to the exercise of Vertue and Modesty but yet not so as that their Worship should be confined to those Places and Times so as that it must necessarily be undertaken begun and finished there and then according to the Decree and Limitation of those Men for that Worship should be performed by the Impulse and Assistance of the Spirit alone who Acts freely being confined to no spaces or limitations now they would admit of no Sacraments Signs or Seals of the Grace of God that were perceptible by the Senses whence they assumed the Notion that Baptism and the Lord's Supper is something that is inward and Spiritual and that those external Rites continued in the Apostolical Churches but as Figures for a time until the substance of the thing it self was obtained The Quakers spoke and wrote many things from the very beginning of their Sect concerning God and Christ as they were in Men and that Men subsisted in them and almost all their Discourse depended hereon but so as that it was hard yea impossible for a Man to understand what they meant thereby or to cause any other to understand it They began in process of time to explain their meaning more clearly upon this Head and to be more open concerning it and therein as it were placed the Foundation of their whole Doctrine which shall be spoken of at a more convenient time This therefore was the first Form and Description of their Doctrine but as the Doctrine and Faith of these Men was admirable and singular their Life and Conversation was no less for this chiefly consisted in Abstinence and Continency they said all publick and private Wars were forbidden by the Law of God and they shunned all Acts of Revenge and Resistance also neither would they when they had any concerns with other Men though before a Magistrate and that the matter might require it confirm their Asseverations with any Religious Affirmation much less with an Oath and such ways they said were altogether forbidden Moreover they abstained from Pleasures gay Cloaths and superfluous Attire and hated such ways and artifices as tended to Vanity and Pastime as also Shews Play-houses Plays and all manner of Joking and Laughter and besides these they declined to use such Voices Faces Gestures Motions Salutations Blandishments Obsequiousness and the like which are commonly practised in the Societies and Interviews of Men and go by the name of Vertues or of Good Manners and Breeding and did require this That every one look after practise and perform in a serious prudent sparing sober grave and severe manner all that which the Dignity Honour and Excellency of a Christian did require and this both in words and deeds and that they conformed themselves as much as might be to that way of Living This is that Method of Living which the Quakers from the very first rise of them have retained constantly to this very day and they did indeed so extol this their Theology as if this at last and no other did agree to the Constitution and Condition of the New Covenant between God and Man and of the Instrument thereof the New Testament and as if it were the only one adapted to convince and lead all sorts of Men to the Reception of the Christian Faith and to ingenerate true Piety towards God and Men. And as to what appertained to the Life and Manners of them they were themselves very sensible how the Men of this World hated them made a Laughing-stock of them and accounted them as it were the scum and off-scourings of Men for the austereness and severity of their Manners as being so opposite to the Conversation of Men and as it were upbraiding the Folly of all of them But as they bare this Misfortune with great Constancy of Mind and said that they shunned nothing feared nothing besides what was really a sin either against God or Men so they also retorted this that all good Men who own that the Christian World hath long since groaned and as it were been
this theme as if he had aim'd at no other design then to bring in some and play upon others with a few frothy flowrishes of words This is the matter of fact The Parliament made it their purpose and endeavour to give Liberty of Conscience to such as I have Nam'd A Committee of a select number of the house was order'd to treat of this affair They when doubting of the Quakers Doctrine and saith concerning the sacred Scripture and mystery of the holy Trinity because they use not to call the Scripture the word of God thinking that name to be proper only to Christ or to the internal word of God under which sense external Letters can never fall nor to term the Father Son and Spirit three persons that being a word not used in Scripture ordered their Articles and opinion to be presently inquired into Two famous Quakers at that time Geo. Withad and John Virughton treated of these matters with Sir Tho. Clargy a member of the house He advis'd 〈◊〉 with Kindness and Candour to publish their mind fully and fairly concerning these two Articles that were doubted of They without delay write and subscribe their Thoughts and willingly presented 'em to that honourable Man from whom as they had received a wholsom Advice they now also expect a seasonable assistance The form of each of 'em for himself was to this purpose I believe with my heart and confess with my mouth the sacred Scriptures to be Divine left us by Men Inspir'd of God as an exact rule of our faith and behaviour and I profess to believe in one only God who is the father and in Jesus Christ his Eternal Son very God and very Man and in the Holy Spirit one and the same God with the Father and Son blessed for evermore This confession having pleas'd Clargy was given to be read to the rest of the Members who thought fit to call in some nine or ten Quakers that were ready at hand for such a design to question 'em if that were their faith and perswasion Upon their owning it the day following the matter was presented by the Committee to the whole house and thus it was agreed that the Quakers shou'd have liberty and order'd it shou'd be recorded and drawn out into an Act. While publick affairs were thus changed W. Penn was not so regarded and respected by King and Court as he was formerly by King James partly because of his intimacy with King James and partly for adhering to his old opinion concerning the Oath of fidelity which was now mitigated but not abrogated Besides this it was suspected that Penn Corresponded with the late King now Lurking in France under the umbrage and protection of the French King an enemy justly and equally odious to the Brittish King and united Provinces 'twixt whom there was now an inveterate War This suspicion was follow'd and also encreas'd by a Letter intercepted from King James to Penn desiring Penn to come to his assistance in the present State and Condition he was in and express the Resentments of his favour and benevolence Upon this Penn being cited to appear was ask'd why King James wrote unto him he answer'd he cou'd not hinder such a thing being further question'd what Resentments these were which the late King seem'd to desire of him he answer'd he knew not but said he supposed King James wou'd have him to endeavour his Restitution and that tho he cou'd not decline the suspicion yet he cou'd avoid the guilt and since he had loved King James in his prosperity he shou'd not hate him in his adversity yea he lov'd him as yet for many favours he had conferr'd on him tho he wou'd not joyn with him in what concern'd the State of the Kingdom He own'd he had been much oblig'd to King James and that he wou'd reward his kindness by any private office as far as he cou'd observing inviolably and intirely that duty to the publick and Government which was equally Incumbent upon all Subjects and therefore that he had never the vanity to think of endeavouring to restore him that Crown which was fallen from his head so that nothing in that Letter cou'd at all seem to fix guilt upon him From that time Penn withdrew himself more and more from business and at length at London in his own house confin'd himself as it were to a voluntary exile from the converse fellowship and conference of others employing himself only in his Domestick affairs that he might be devoted more to Meditation and Spiritual exercises In the year Ninety three two books of his came out in English the one of a Solitary life the other a Key to understand the Articles of the Quakers faith This year Penn went out of his voluntary Prison compensing the leisure of his lonely life by the comfort of Marriage which he now entred into and the greater toil he took on himself in managing all his business and affairs Geo. Fox also after many changes and viciâ—â—itudes having seen various chances and dangers after he had often been Anxious concerning the progress and continuance of his life now not doubting to Consummate and end his Labours in the beginning of Ninety one resign'd up his Life After his Death his Widdow Margaret an old woman of about 76 years who had shar'd with him in the office of preaching wrote thus to a General Meeting of women held at London that same year Most Dear Friends and Sisters in the Lord I Did not scruple to write unto you from the Sense of that which was from the beginning which now is and for ever shall be and that for your great Love and care of me and the half of my self my Husband as long as he labour'd among you for the Lord. Since he 's now entred into Rest and heavenly Glory if we 'll regard what he said while he was alive let 's fix our constant Dependance upon God Neither doubt I if we walk with that Spirit of Life and Strength he had but we shall be preserv'd even unto the end In the mean time growing up and bearing fruit unto the Lord we shall become Trees Justice to the praise and Glory of God Wherefore I do earnestly warn and exhort you to abide constantly in the service of God for ye shall certainly reap the reward of much Consolation in this World and of an eternal Recompence in that which is to come Farewell and joyn with me in praising of God Fox not long before he died by the Interposal of certain Friends and Amanuenses's wrote a large book in English only with reference to what concern'd himself during the time he labour'd among his friends in the Ministry and provided by his latter will it shou'd be carefully Printed and a Coppy of it sent to all the yearly and Quarterly Meetings of his Friends wherever gather'd together throughout the whole World in Remembrance of him and for their particular Advantage The book was publish'd being strengthen'd
to bring them over into their Society and the same belief with themselves And so John Stubs and Henry Fell took up a resolution and prepared themselves for a Voyage into China that farthermost bound of Asia and most Easterly Region of the Earth But when they understood how difficult or indeed almost impossible it was to gain access into those parts especially for such sort of Men as they who wherever they went were the laughing stock and hatred of all people and found matter of discourse and ridicule for all that saw them and Considering that the safest way for them to go would be if first they could get into the East-Indies and there travel about the places that were possess'd by the English and Dutch and under their Jurisdiction and Government they apply'd themselves to the Governour and Committee of the East-India Company in England for leave to make a Voyage thither in their Ships But they slighted these peoples requests So they intreat the same favour of the Governours of the Dutch East-India Company But they neither did not grant them their desire Wherefore both of them seeing all hopes and opportunity of this Voyage lost laid aside their intended design A like memorable instance there is of one Alexander Parker who not only proposed but made a Voyage into Africa to endeavour if there were any opportunity to bring those poor people to the knowledge of the Truth and Godliness But he came back again after he had been gone a year but gave no account as these people are us'd alwaies to know more than they say what he had done in those parts and why he had made so quick a return So these Men made a great bustle and stir to no purpose at all And when thereupon they became very Despicable and Ridiculous in the Eyes of their Adversaries who had not fail'd to pry into and to take exact notice of all that they did and thence raise objections against them they made use of this excuse to defend themselves with when they had not accomplished what they aimed at that it appear'd plainly that they were not frighted or deterred by any dangers or difficulties from Prosecuting what they desired and intended but only were compell'd by necessity to leave it off and that as the Deeds of all Men so theirs too ought not to be measured and approv'd of by the Event but from the goodness of intention and well meaning the design was begun with Now leaving these remote quarters of the world I will return again into Europe and first into our own Country For so it was that whilst these Men as we have seen travers'd the remotest Regions of the Earth others of them came over into our provinces and from hence went to other places to propagate and spread abroad their Doctrines these being of the most skillful and fit amongst them for these purposes and especially being indefatigably industrious in labours and patient under Adversities But nevertheless as none of these Men except one or two was so furnished by the Holy Spirit as to be able to speak the Language of the Nation they came to wherever it was without the help of an Interpreter who himself seldom knew how to translate their sayings into the same sense and words as they spake them and besides might either through mistake or on set purpose render them amiss So all of them with great vehemence Zeal and Industry set about this work but for all their care and pains could not do much good at it Besides that they also which follow'd those that had gone afore them altho they understood the Languages of the Countreys they went into well enough yet made but small progresses Wherefore in all those parts where these Preachers had travelled at this day you shall find very few or no Quakers Now these Emissaries came over I believe into our provinces first I believe because of the nearness of the Country and Liberty and toleration of Religion and the Multitude of Divers people following their own particular Sects of Religion wherefore there were several of them that did not much differ in Principles of Religion and very little in their way of living from the Quakers The first of these Emissaries and Missionaries that came over hither were William Ames John Stubs and William Caton This was in the year 55. Not long after these followed John Higgins Steven Crisp William Baily Josias Cole and others When Ames Stubbs and Caton were come over to Holland they mov'd some of their own Countrymen with their new Doctrines to such a Degree that they raised some little Disturbance in the Reformed English Church and brought a few of our Countrey Mennonites or Anabaptists over to their side And these made the Name of Quakers to be first known in these Provinces After these things Ames travels to other places but Stubs and Caton betake themselves to Rotterdam where at that time as well as now a great many English Merchants resided And here Caton held forth in an English Merchant's House to a great Number of English and Dutch there assembled in his own mother Tongue English but his words were rendered in Dutch by another Man for the sake of those Hollanders that did not understand English But this was labour in vain for which they gave this reason that their Interpreter had not rightly given the Auditors the true sense and meaning of what Caton had said and the due Emphasis of his words So Caton leaving Stubs at Rotterdam goes back again to Amsterdam in which City there was now a little small Church gathered and that principally of Dutch Anabaptists Where coming into the Assembly of these people and there making a long Discourse by an Interpreter for here also they did not understand English he met with the same success as before at Rotterdam For before the coming of these Men to Rotterdam there were certain Citizens of that City for their singular way of living and manners however suspected and hated by the others that met together in a certain house There was a rumour spread abroad that within that house there was a parcel of foolish triffling juggling fellows met together So there runs a great Concourse of People thither ready to set upon them in great fury But the Burgomaster of the City comes thither with the officers that usually attend him They knockt at the door and because no body opened it they break it open and there find out this unusual Meeting and see one Isaac Ferner a Preaching to them not out of a Pulpit but standing upon the stairs Him the Burgomaster commands to be apprehended and 3 of his hearers for the rest of them were fled away in a great fright These 4 Men were presently carried away to a Bethlem-house or place where Madmen and those that were distracted us'd to be kept as if they were such a kind of people There was one of these to whose feet they ty'd a Wooden Clog so
of her Glory turn'd aside to this By-Way and having run through part of her life in that very House on which she had with those prodigious Endowments of Mind bestow'd so much Cost she was forsaken of all those that gap'd after her Estate and all her Family and left all alone but only not forsaken of God or abandoned to Desperation and so in her mournful Seat she breath'd out her Soul when she had first recommended it to God in Christ Of this excellent Maid to add this by the by What was mortal and perishing was repos'd not in the Sepulchral Monument or Tomb belonging to the Family of the Waltars erected in the Church as it might have been but without in the Church-yard or Ground lying about it in the common Earth amongst the rest of her Brothers and Sisters according to her own desire leaving that Monument out of Modesty that Familiarizer and Governess of all other Virtues of which this Lady in her life-time was always the perfect Pattern But since what the Doctrine of these People was what their Religion and how their way of Living what their Intention and what their aims and enterprises about the Church and other Men were may be fully known by their Writings which several Men among them yea and some Women too have published concerning themselues and many of our Learned Men of them I shall not now stay to Recapitulate But because all this Relation tends to this end to shew what Agreement there was between the Quakers of whom alone in this Work we treat and these Labadists I call them so because I know no better name to call them by in Doctrine and what Institution to one and the same purpose and lastly what intentions they had to joyn in Friendships and contract Acquaintances I will shortly and in few words relate it As to their Doctrine although these Men at first introduced little or nothing which was different from our Faith yet in process of time they brought in divers Innovations about the use of the Holy Scriptures and the guidance and operations of the Holy Spirit and Prayers and the remaining parts of Worship and the Sacraments and Discipline of the Church so that they came nearer to the Opinions of the Quakers in these things than to our Doctrine Now it appears that these Men no less than the Quakers reprehended and found fault with many things in our Churches and those of all Protestants that they were all so corrupt and deprav'd that no effect no fruit of the Spirit of God appeared amongst them nor no Worship of God but only a carnal and external One no mutual attention no conjunction of Minds no love no will no endeavours for the good one of another or the common good that was to be seen Lastly That no one's Life and Manners answered what they all profess'd or the Example and Precepts of Christ And as this was the complaint and quarrel of the Quakers so in like manner was it of these People too that with these vices above others were infected those that were the Prelates and Preachers of the Word and Stewards of the Mysteries of God Lastly these People thought thus that they were the Men from whom the beginning and first Examples of the Restitution of the Church was to be expected who also were wholly intent upon the famous work of this Reformation Just as the Quakers thought that this was chiefly reserv'd for them and that they were in a special manner obliged to go on with this Work of Reformation So great was the Fame of this Society that there was scarce any place in these Countries where there was not a great talk talk about these Teachers and Workers so that in Foreign Countries there was scarce any where unless it were among such People who have no regard to what is done abroad who had not heard something of them Therefore when these Reports were gone over into England and Scotland at first indeed there were some of these Men who being averse from the State of the Church as under the Bishops contained themselves within their own Churches which were more remote from external rites and splendor and a worldly and delicate polite as they call it and elegant Life and Conversation who also undertook the Ministerial Function At last also the Quakers who as soon as ever they heard of this sort of Men and their plain Religion and way of Life that they followed they began to think in good earnest of this Society of People and to be better acquainted with them and to consider ways and means amongst themselves how they should come to enter into Consultation with them I know that there was one of those Ministers of the Gospel so averse from the Episcopal way and addicted to Presbyterial Churches who not only himself writes to this Society but also communicates his thoughts upon this subject to an eminent Quaker which Man when after that time he foresaw many things from the face of the Kingdom which tho not altogether true indeed yet seeming very probable and likely to come to pass at that time he was not such a fearer of Episcopacy but that one might read in his Countenance and since he was a Man that one time or another it would come to pass as afterwards it happen'd that he was made a Bishop The first of the Quakers that came from Scotland to the Labadists to Amsterdam was George Keith a Man both very skillful in and much us'd to Controversie and Disputes After him comes out of England R. Barclay a Man likewise of great Experience and well seen in the Defence of his Religion These Men one after another treat about this matter with Labadee and the rest of them on whom the Government of the Society lay But when the Quakers opened their Mind briefly and in a common Style but they on the other hand us'd such deep and far fetch'd Speeches and those so round about the bush and turning and winding and so much Eloquence or endless Talkativeness that the Quakers knew not what these Men would say or how to know or find out and discern their Opinions Institutions and Intentions or where to have them which also had often happen'd to our People enquiring of these Men about these things and now began to suspect that they were not such a pure sort of People and were either bordering upon some Errors or privately entertain'd and bred some monstrous Opinion And when the Quakers tried again at another time to see further if by any means they could bring things to a Consent and Agreement and a conjunction together that they might act in common Concert the Labadists not only drew back but also resented it ill and were so angry that they thought it would be to no purpose to try any farther Conclusions with them And either upon the occasion of these Meetings together or from the designs of some of their Adversaries to reproach them it came to pass
his much esteemed John Calvin in his Writings hath called the Papists filthy Dogs and yet many of them were in an eminent degree of the Magistracy But I speak not this to justifie my self or any other when by human Infirmity we may be carried with too great heat of Mind in reproving the Errors and Faults of others But it was most loathsome Hypocrisie in my Adversaries to blame my heat with so great a noise and to make nothing of their own Iniquity and Impiety yea Blasphemy against both God and Christ and who in the heat of Mind and in hard Words did far exceed me P. 440. So that to them to wit the People called Quakers all are Christians to wit Jews Mahometans Painims in whom any good Seed of Religion appeareth and which they say is from Christ yea is Christ himself The Annot. He may well indeed affirm this of many of them and especially of George Whitehead who earnestly contendeth in that late Book called The Christian Doctrine c. cited by the Author Pag 467. that these Heathens or Gentiles who are obedient to the Light within who are without all Knowledg and Faith of Christ without are Christians wherein I have much differed from them and do at present differ For although I contend with all good Christians That Christ as he is that essential Word is in all Men yet it doth not suffice to our Eternal Salvation to know only and believe that Christ is the Word but that we both know him and believe in him as he took Flesh Died for our Sins and Rose again c. and how in that respect he is our Saviour as he is the intire Christ God-Man P. 452. Neither could this whole Deified Senate reconcile these two men The Annot. Whither the Author calleth that Senate Deified by way of scorn or otherwise I do not determine But if by the word Entheatus he meaneth Deified or Godded as to say made God or equal to God certainly some of the Quakers have so affirmed that who have the Spirit of God are equal to God but I never had any such madness nor have P. 474. Pen and Whitehead could so little rule their Minds and Tongues and Keith also could so little contain himself c. The Annot. I was indeed pressed with such grief of Soul and warmed with such heat of Mind against their Injustice and Hypocrisie that I confess I could not contain but sharply reprove their Faults and however I might have exceeded with respect to the inward frame of my mind yet I said nothing that was false when on the other side they did cast out many false and unjust things against me And William Penn in that very Meeting did justifie his false Accusation against me when in the publick Meeting at Ratcliff he called me Apostate saying He did it not in any Passion but he was so transported out of himself by the glorious Power of God that he did not at all know whether he was Standing Sitting or Kneeling which many who heard him so falsely accuse me knew well enough was a most shameful Falshood Pag. 113. For neither is the Scripture to them viz. the Quakers as we understand that word the perpetual and absolutely necessary Mean and the only and intire Form and Rule of Faith and Manners The Annot. I deny not but that it is true what this Author saith of the most and especially of many Ministers and Preachers among them But as to me when I was enough in favour with that People and to use their Phrase when I was in Unity with the Body of Friends I did affirm both by Word and Writ that the Holy Scripture to wit not the bare Letter but the Doctrine of the Scripture whether delivered by Voice or VVriting in God's ordinary way was the perpetual and necessary Mean and continueth so to be of our obtaining the Faith of Christ Crucified the Holy Spirit working together with the Doctrine in Men's Hearts which doth plainly appear out of my Answer to W. Bayer Professor of Theology at Jeninge in Germany first published in Latin and sent to him and then in English for Robert Barclay which Answer I suppose this Author has read for he maketh mention of it in this his History and doth relate the general Contents of it fairly enough And let the Author read again if he pleaseth that Answer or let any other read it and they will find especially if they read the Chap. 5th and 3d if they well weigh what I there delivered in that matter that either the difference is none or but small betwixt my Faith and the Faith of the more sound Protestants any where in that particular P. 114. Hence that God hath given to all men a new Birth c. The Annot. The Author I judge doth not well ascribe this to the People called Quakers viz. That God hath given to all Men a new Birth But this they say That God hath given to every Man an inward Light or a certain Seed of the New Birth which yet in many Men cometh not to a New Birth And although in this I aggree with them That God hath given to every Man an inward Light as a certain Seed yet in this I greatly differ from many of them that many yea the most or rather indeed almost all the Ministers among them very few excepted do affirm that this inward Light is sufficient to bring forth the New Birth and to give Eternal Salvation without any thing without us that is without the Man-Christ that was outwardly Born and Crucified and Rose again whom some of their Ministers in my hearing have called an outside thing a shell a husk that doth little or nothing profit us and the Faith of which doth nothing profit us And William Penn in that Meeting at Ratcliff where he falsely called me an Apostate did publickly proclaim after this manner Friends said he see no great need of Preaching the Faith of Christs Death and Suffenings for all England and all Christendom have that Faith and it doth not profit them But the Faith which profitteth Men is the Faith of Christ within and this Friends Preach Let now the Author judge or any other intelligent Person professing Christianity whither William Penn hath not sufficiently by these words proved himself an Apostate from the Christian Faith And mark the necessary consequence of these words All England and all Christendom have the Faith of Christ's Death and Suffering and it doth not profit them therefore there is no necessity of Preaching it but it were best that that Faith were wholly forgot and buried in Oblivion Is not this manner of Preaching enough not only to prove him that so Preacheth an Apostate but that it is the way with open face to bring in Anti-Christianism into the VVorld But although it must be granted that too many in Christendom have no other but a dead and hypocritical Faith concerning Christ and his Death and Sufferings for which
in all the Holy Writings that escap'd his Knowledge or Remembrance I have heard some of his Friends say and those not of the Vulgar size but Men of Learning and Knowledge that though the Bible were lost it might be found in the Mouth of George Fox Hence it was that as every one's Perfection and Talent discovers it self in their Discourses and Writings so all the Discourses he ever had to his People and all the Writings left on Record behind him were nothing but a train of several Texts of Scripture sewed and patch'd together Now after he had thus spent so much of his time in studying the Scripture Meditating on Religious Things and seriously weighing the condition and state of his own Soul he could not contain himself within the Bounds of his Trade and Station but began to aspire after higher things and transgressing the limits of his Sphere would needs attempt some nobler Enterprize that might be Serviceable both to himself and others And accordingly not contenting himself with the private use of what he had acquir'd he took occasion oft-times to Discourse of these Matters to his Fellow-Tradesmen and Acquaintance exhorting and admonishing them to be much taken up with these Concerns And in these his frequent Exhortations he was so officious and importunate that he would never give over till at length it came to such a height that neither they would any longer give ear to his severe Discourses nor could he any longer bear with the Contradictions Reproaches and Affronts he met with on that account Which obliged him then to withdraw himself from all manner of Society either Working alone in some hidden corner of his Shop or because even then there was frequently some curious Fellows coming to hear of him what he had to say who since his severe Discourses could never please them were still creating more trouble when he had done with Working he presently forsook the Shop getting up into some Garret or other where being remov'd from all manner of Company he might both be free from the Molestations of others and give Offence to none It happened in the Year of our Lord 1643. that this George Fox being then in the Nineteenth Year of his Age was walking alone in the Fields profoundly Meditating upon the Nature Mind Manners Institutions and Discipline of Mankind of their Societies and Converse one with another but especially bending his thoughts upon the condition and state of Young People considering what Duties were required at their hands what Diligence Care and Circumspection was necessary in one and all of them for leading Lives while here worthy of the Gospel and becoming Men and for obtaining an Everlasting blessed Life when this is come to its Period All which things he seriously and frequently ponder'd in his solitary Breast fervently applying himself to the Throne of Grace that it might please the Almighty God to Teach and Instruct him a Young Man in this state of Humane Affairs furnishing him with the knowledge of his Duty and ability to perform the same upon which there came a Voice from Heaven dictating unto his Spirit that All Mankind was only and altogether Vanity that Children and Young People grew up in Lyes and Vanities as they did in Years those of middle Age advanced still more and more in the same manner of Vices so that when arriv'd at Old Age they were harden'd and confirm'd in the Customary Practice of the same and when they come to be stricken in Years and their Blood and Spirits to fade they lose all Knowledge and Sense becoming again meer Children having extinguish'd that light of their Minds which should then be shining most brightly and giving themselves up to nothing but Doteries and Childish Trifles Death creeping upon them insensibly which Cites all before the Vniversal Judge and Lord of all things Therefore it was his Duty and Interest as being a Young Man to separate himself from that polluted Multitude keeping no Commerce with them but sequestrating himself to a solitary Life far remov'd from all manner of evil This Divine Response did he many times report to his fellows Whether it was really a Voice from Heaven or only the Reasoning of his own Breast I do not say only this is to be remark'd that both this Fox and his first Followers did at their first appearance and for a long time after account all the Motions of their Spirit or Inclinations to Good which they found in themselves upon serious Meditation or upon any new Occasion to be the effect of the Holy Spirit of God working the same within them and whenever they were sensible of this Commotion within them they used to say that a Voice was sent down from God by his Spirit unto them uttering such and such Discourse and to this purpose they usher'd in all their Discourses to the People with a Thus saith the Lord and his Spirit by his own mouth this was that they might seem more nighly to resemble the Holy Prophets and Apostles that were inspired from above by the Divine Spirit and sent by it But of late they abstain from such high-flown Pretences calling what thus comes upon them the Impulse and Motion of their Minds Fox used to tell how that Heavenly Oracle did so effectually recommend it self to his Youthful Spirit that presently he betook himself home not being able to express what he had heard Nay the Image of this Voice was always so before his Eyes not only all that day but all the succeeding Night that he could not go to bed And from that time he obey'd this Heavenly Admonition And though he had always been diligent in Reading and Meditating on the Holy Scriptures and had frequently set times apart for Fasting and Praying unto God yet then being engaged in so difficult and important a Design in complyance to the Divine Will he went about the same Christian Duties with more Application Fervour and Frequency Especially having by Experience learned that there was no means more effectual than these for taming Man's vicious Nature and suppressing his unruly Appetites so enclinable to Humane though hurtful Society and the Corruptions of a polluted World And though before this he had abstain'd sufficiently from Converse with Men yet from that time forth he was more strict in shunning all manner of Humane Conversation being only intent upon the Exercise of his Trade as much as was necessary for purchasing a Livelihood and spending all the rest of his time in Holy and Religious Exercises Nor did he only shun the Company of or meeting with those he knew or suspected to be given up to the Vanities and Lusts of this World but even those that made large shews of Religion and Vertue For he did not deny that there were many who seemed to be very Religious and Devout pretending the Scripture or Word of God for the Rule and Ground both of Faith and Manners but this he complain'd heavily of that there was so many
thing give shrewd Evidence that he was one of those sort of Men who covet to have both themselves and all things belonging to them taken notice of and that he accounted it no disgrace but rather matter of glorying to be pointed at and observ'd by every body So far was he from hiding or concealing these his Revelations and the singular Eminency of his Gifts or imagining that they might be contemned and derided as vain empty shews in the Eyes of an ill-temper'd Mind so far was he from such a strain as this that on the contrary as being impatient of such wonderful Secrets he never ceased to relate and communicate them unto his familiar Friends and Followers and that with the greatest strokes of Confidence and huge expressions of Joy but withal not forgetting to return unto God thanks for such singular Mercies And these his Friends and Followers did no less believe them things to be true and propose them to the World as worthy to be accounted true by all taking all care to Trumpet forth the Praises of the Renowned Author All which was very acceptable to George so that if any body gave a favourable and respectful Judgment of him and his Enterprizes he presently apply'd it to himself with a great deal of Self-applause Of which we have an evident Instance from a saying of one Brown on his Death-bed concerning George Fox That he would be an Instrument in the hand of God for doing great Works which George interpreted and affirmed to be a Vision or Prophecy foretelling Infallibly what great things were to be verified in him All his Friends were of the same strain with himself for they gave it out to Instance in one thing that Nathanael Stevens whom I formerly mentioned as Pastor of the Church of the place of George's Nativity and Tutor and Instructor to him in his Childhood did give this Testimony unto him before a Remarkable Person That England did never produce such a Bud as George Fox that he began to be suspicious of his falling upon some new Methods and carving out new ways not hitherto found out As also that another time in presence of all the People and of George himself the same Person said That George Fox had penetrated to the Light of the Sun but that he went busily about to Eclipse and darken the Light of his old Pedagogue Stevens by the greater Light which through the Sun was in him Which these Men accounted to be the highest Elogy could be given And it seems very wonderful to me while I consider that Fox himself did at this time complain that Stevens who formerly express'd so much Love and Kindness to him and was in a manner a Father to him for 't is true indeed that he commended his Piety and Ingenuity at the beginning was now become his Adversary having publickly proclaim'd out of the Pulpit in his own Presence that he was a Young Man toss'd about with mad and unruly Fancies It would seem that these Commendatory Expressions were rather spoke by Stevens with Indignation and Disdain ironically insinuating that Insolence and Haughtiness that reign'd in him which by the People were ignorantly understood to be properly and truly design'd for Proclaiming the Merits of George Fox Having for a considerable time addicted himself entirely to his Studies he now began to try and make the Experiment whether he was able to compass what he wish'd and hop'd for to which effect he attempted to Methodize and Collect his Thoughts and Meditations that at several times had possess'd his Mind concerning the General Corruption and Degeneracy of Man's Nature the Restoration of fallen Mankind the Love and Grace of God the Illumination of Men by the Holy Spirit and several other Heads in order to make a Treatise or entire Work of the whole In this state he continued for three Years which was to him as an Academical course he spending that time with no less Industry and Diligence both in Nocturnal Lucubrations and Morning Exercises sitting up late and rising early to compass his Design than is usually given by those who spend all their time upon University Learning and dedicate their whole Lives to the prosecution of their Studies But so soon as ever he began to peep out from his lurking Solitude which was in the Year One Thousand Six Hundred and Forty Seven and to Publish unto the World what he was and what Design he was upon it is incredible to think what a conflux of People followed after him after having heard him frequently and became acquainted with his Thoughts with what Unanimity and Concord they all joyn'd issue to what he said and taught and that in a very small compass of time Wherefore looking upon the desire and nod of the People as the Voice of God inviting him to dedicate himself wholly to them and take upon him the Office of a Teacher that so he might freely communicate and impart to all Men whatever was in him bending his Wit and Abilities to their use and advantage he thought himself obliged to give ear to this Heavenly Command And accordingly from that time forth he abandon'd the Shooe-maker's Trade in which he had never been as a Master but as an Apprentice or Journey-man not purchasing any magnificent things but withal not living sordidly or too meanly and now all his care was to undertake the Office of a Teacher in this new Church And because he was thus destitute of a Livelyhood which he formerly had by his Trade there was not wanting of his Followers who afforded him whereupon to relieve his Necessities lest his being reduced to straits had crushâ—d so glorious an Enterprize in the bud But withal it is not to be omitted that he never either asked any thing of his own accord nor when he got did he ever take more than was simply necessary for his sustenance nay nor afterwards when his condition was betterâ—d in so much that he could have afforded a splendid and costly Entertainment did he ever allow himself a larger abundance of good things but continued all along very moderate both in Diet Cloathing and all other things belonging to the Body And as if either he could not or would not forget his Ancient Trade of working in Leather for a long time he cloathed himself altogether with Leather and in this Garment he went about Preaching and Teaching which gave ground to the Name given him viz. The Leathern Man Thus he daily converted many to be of his Sect and was accounted amongst the People for a Man of singular Piety his Name and Fame was spread round in the Counties of Leicester Nottingham and Darby so that People came on all hands to hear and be taught of him who when return'd to their homes extoll'd him among their Neighbours for a Heavenly Man But there were at this time others who became Colleagues and Partners with him in the work of the Ministry and in all corners of the Land were Men to
affirmatively he immediately pull'd off the Cataplasms and she was forthwith restored to her Health Both himself and his Followers do likewise pretend that on some occasions he performed the like Miracles by the simple touch of his hand But besides Miracles the Quakers did after this time pretend to Visions and Prophecies which they said was a singular Gift vouchsafed only to them Yet they were more sparing in their Discourses on this Subject and except one or two Examples which are very special and depending on the distinction of Places Times and Persons they alledge nothing but General Examples which therefore cannot be of any certain Authority so as to merit our belief and I do not find their special Instances of such weight as to be worth our inserting Nay this I choose rather to say That the Quakers who succeeded these first beginners do not make so much noise either of Miracles or Visions nor do they willingly speak or write of those of their Sect that preceded them unless very cautiously and warily acknowledging and owning that since the old Gospel preached by Christ and his Apostles was sufficiently confirmed with Miracles and Predictions this new Gospel which they now advance being in substance the same with that of old does not need these Helps and Miracles That they do not make their Religion depend upon them that they neither hope nor wish for Praise and Glory from Men nor expect to procure a favourable Reception from them upon any such account So that it seems this is their intention to boast of some of the Signs of the Primitive and Apostolick Church but withal to take care lest if these Signs be not clear and manifest to all they should come to be despised and laugh'd at Unless they propose to themselves the Example of our Saviour who sometimes took pains to conceal his Miracles and Prophecies The Quakers commemorate it that their Sect did so multiply and increase after this Year and maintain'd so much Concord and Unity among themselves that now they became an orderly and settled Church conspicuous not for external Splendor and Magnificence but for eminent Innocence and Simplicity And whereas most of them had heretofore continued still Members of the Churches they were formerly joyned to or if at any time they went aside to follow their New Model of Worship it was very privately and with a few Companions but now they separated from them in great numbers and with open and undaunted boldness joyning into one Body among themselves with one Voice and one Mind professing themselves to be all incorporated into one common Society entring into an Ecclesiastical Covenant one with another that as oft and in whatever place as an Opportunity offered it self they should joyn and assemble together for going about Religious Matters And all their Religionary Confessions were of this Nature that they insisted more on the received Tenets of other Churches which they were to reject and condemn than in delivering positively what Articles they were to believe and maintain As to other things their Doctrines were short and plain They contain'd few necessary Articles of Faith none of them related to the contemplation and speculation of abstruse and difficult things which are more curious than useful to Piety and Goodness they were all concerning the Light which shines in every Man's Soul and the Word of God within them of inward Communion with God of the Reverence Love and Obedience due to him and his revealed Will and of the Relative Duties of Men one to another When they assembled together for Divine Worship their manner of Worshipping and all sort of Sacred Exercises were free from any External Accoutrements Rites or Ceremonies all was wrapt up in a deep silence and tacit waiting upon the Spirit till it raised them up to speak and when they spoke their Discourses were Exhorting of every Man to Self-Examination and a serious consideration of the Operations of the Spirit the Light within them and the Word of God which was in their Hearts admonishing them to study to deny themselves subject themselves to God and endeavour to Repent and amend their Lives to be Modest Temperate True and Constant in their Words and Actions and to be diligent and chearful in performing all such Actions as became Men to do and were fit for reconciling Men to one another and advancing Peace and Concord in the World And so far as could be observed by the strictest Enquirer they seemed to lead Lives conform to their Principles for both in their promiscuous Conversation and likewise in one anothers Company their Moderation and Temperance was such as that it became their Character whereby they were distinguished from all others In the Management of Commerce and Trade with the rest of the World they were Meek Mild and Moderate in their Countenances severe and slow in speech they were but mean in their Cloathing and their Houses not richly furnished though there was among them Men of large Substances The most conspicuous Vertue of all was a diligent Love Care and Watchfulness over those of their Faction especially as to their Religious Concerns for they narrowly enquired how every one behaved himself in Religious Matters As to the ordinary Actions of Humane Life they were free from Pride or Ostentation Affable Familiar Bountiful to those of an inferiour Station so that it was no singular or new thing among them to see the Rich and Powerful Courting and Caressing the Poor They were Merciful Liberal and Compassionate to the Miserable and Afflicted either in Body or Mind every one helped another either with his Substance Counsel or Assistance as his Capacity allow'd and the Necessity of his Neighbour requir'd so that none of them wanted for any thing Their chiefest care and business was so to accommodate all their Actions as that they might seem not to introduce any new upstart Religion but to resemble the Ancient Primitive Church imitating their Simplicity Gravity and Vertuous Demeanor By all which it came to pass that many were added to them every body being astonish'd at the singularity of their Carriage I my self am acquainted with a very learned worthy Man who having heard such great things of them had the Curiosity to undertake a Voyage to England in order to satisfie himself of the verity of what was reported and after having arrived there and conversed with them and seen their Actions which far surpass'd his expectation he was so much taken with them that he forthwith yielded himself a Member of their Society But the rest of the World who did not joyn with them abhorred them and all their Actions believing all their fair Pretences to be but vain shews disguised with smooth countenances and deceitful words insomuch that they would not hear nor be witnesses to any of their doings of which they could not entertain the least favourable thought nay they inveigh'd against them with the most reviling Expressions spreading this Report of their Life and
they had given them leave to speak or they did suddenly and at unawares or after some foolish Expressions ensnare them with some words and so haled them to Prison This was the Lot of William Desborough in a Town of Northamptonshire called Wellingborough A certain Minister met him in that Town but what Minister it was and of what Church I pass over and these things I spare because I would spare the Order and Dignity at a time when he was going to Church to Preach to his People he sets upon the Man threatens and severely charges him to give over to deceive the People before God's Judgment overtook him the Quaker asked him wherein it was that he deceived the People To which the Minister replyed That Desborough taught that there was no Original Sin and when Desborough would fain know whether he had heard him at any time say so he whether out of choice or that he was unprepared and straightned for time held his Tongue and went his ways into the Church Desborough follows him and keeping close to the manner and way of his Party stood there all the time that the Minister Prayed and Preached with his Hat on and waited for the end of his Sermon and an Opportunity to speak himself Therefore when the Minister came down from the Pulpit he drew nigh and asked him that he should now before the People prove and demonstrate what he had before said to him to his face but here the Minister went his ways and left the Man in the midst of his Congregation And thus Desborough supposing that it was his part now to speak there he begins to make a sort of a Speech to the People in which they affirmed he should say that all the Ministers of the People were Hirelings who only for Gain gave their Labours to the People hereupon he was hurried away first before the Magistrate and afterward into Prison and laid among Thieves Murderers and Cut-Throats in which place after he had continued almost for the space of Seven Months he was carryed to the Grand Assizes then held at Northampton the County Town of that County before Edward Atkins a Man endued with great Modesty and Moderation of Mind But seeing there was no more but one of his Accusers present and that the Judge was now to determine the matter he did it in these words Common Fame is indeed a good Accuser but not therefore a good Proof And thus far I am satisfied as to those things I have heard of thee but yet because thou art brought out upon a Common Report that you are a dangerous People and the disturbers of the Publick Peace I 'll send thee back into Prison unless thou wilt give in Bail that thou wilt demean thy self well and appear next Assizes But when Desborough said that he look'd upon that unreasonable and that he ought not to give Bail in such a case he was again committed to Prison and when in the next Assizes where Hales was Judge the same Action was brought against him and that there was yet no Accuser there the Judge did also acquit him of the Charge in this Place yet commanded him to be carryed back to the same place and kept there till another time Another Instance of this kind was this some of the Quakers had a Meeting together and were at their Worship in Manchester a certain Minister of the Publick Church goes in to them of his own accord and challenges all that would oppose him and said that he would shew that their Spirit they pretended to was the Spirit of the Devil and so appoints both time and place where if they pleased they might hear him demonstrate the same by Arguments There was then present there Leonard Fell afore spoken of who more especially being not able to hear nor endure such an heavy Objection and Charge he promised to be present and having taken some of his Companions along with him appears at the time and place appointed There the Minister being more animated than ready and furnished for the Work protracts and defers the Business to another time but they did then offer themselves and came briskly to the matter in Controversie which while that was done some rude and impertinent Fellows break in and fall upon them with great violence and sharpness give them many blows and pull them not only out of the Houses but also hal'd them out of the Town crying that they were sent by the Officers of the place to do so There were indeed some wicked Fellows at Beverley who while Isaac Gate was Preaching to his Followers set upon them in the House crying out that he vilified their Ministers and pull'd him out by the hair of the Head into the Street It were a tedious and almost an endless thing to declare how many Assemblies have been disturbed how many Men tormented and what and how great Calamities they have endured in their own Habitations how many have been burdened and fined wearied with Imprisonments forbid their own Homes and driven into Banishment only for that cause because they held their own Conventicles some because they stood about such places as those some because they went to visit their Companions and Friends as they called themselves one among another and named themselves to other People though they were otherwise free from any Offence and though there was no manner of Sect except the Popish one which had not as much freedom as they pleased to meet and come together There is an Obsolete Law in England which contains That if any one as a Labouring-man betake himself some where to get his Living and cannot shew and prove who he is from whence he comes whither he goes and what his business is by a Pass under some Justice of Peace his Hand that same Person as a Vagabond an Idle and Rascally Fellow is Imprisoned among such as are so and there made to beat Hemp his belly full and to earn his Livelihood Wherefore as often as they found any of the Quakers when they met together they haled them from thence before a Magistrate and if they were not so well known or but Poor and could not pay these they punished in this manner and this indeed seemed to administer just matter of Complaint to the Quakers against their Adversaries for it is an Old Maxim taken from the very Marrow of the Law That one should not do to another what he would not have done to himself And this is the Golden Sentence of our Saviour fetched from the Holy Law of God and from the Prophets That whatever any one would have done to himself by Men let him do the same unto them wherefore he complains in vain of having wrong done unto him who does the same unto another And it 's a most wicked thing and not to be endured to deny that to another which one would have to be given to himself Moreover seeing that the Quakers seeking so much after the Severity of
coming of the Spirit till at length they be mov'd or stir'd up to hold forth and then they pray preach or sing according to the Spirit 's sudden impulse In like manner the rest sits still to hear For while they stay in the place where they worship bending their thoughts inwardly with regard to the Spirit they look what he does or Dictates within and where they perceive the speaker to be thither they direct their minds and attentions searching themselves they bring all home to their own Conscience And thus while the Spirit delays his coming each of 'em prays inwardly unto God for himself sighing and groaning now and then deeply for great striving and contrary affections They sometimes move themselves or are moved so far as issues in a great trembling of the body not only of some but of most or all of ' em This 't is said does often fall out by the resistance of 〈◊〉 secret insinuations I was told by one worthy to be believ'd at a certain time they fell all so a trembling he himself being one that the place was shaken as 't were with an Earth-quake If it happen that none of 'em obtain the presence of the Spirit when he is not pleas'd to move 'em to speak they sometimes all go away as they came without uttering a word among ' em But even then they say they lose not their labour for every one carries away some advantage for himself and while one prays for another thence also some profit does result to the rest yea while they pray for them who come only to look on laugh sport or scoff they say such receive a wonderful virtue to better their Life and hasten their Conversion Thus they do in their common and publick exercises They worship God by praying praising or preaching according to the various Agitation of the Spirit Sometimes they worship in all three kinds not promiscuously but one by one unless it happen they sing all together But their chief and solemn exercise is the preaching of the word This principally consists in proposing a certain theme for Edification or exhortation to some duty And because they think the power of the preacher is not placed in words or bodily motions unless the composure of his Voice and Countenance be suitably managed with simplicity and gravity but only in the worth or weight of things they affect not form or Method taken from Rules of Art but make use of plain and obvious words not intending to gratify the itching of the Ear but to express the interior feeling of the Soul and make an Impression upon the hearer's mind with an active Air not of gesture but of face and utterance They sharply censure Theologues for becoming Ethologues or Mimicks whose Eloquence does wholly consist in Gesticulation Their prayers are mostly doleful Lamentations the lower they be they esteem 'em more dutiful They sing and praise not by a regular pronunciation of words or musical Melody far less by the Numbers of metre or verse which sort of singing is never lawful with them but when one of 'em has an extemporary faculty to compose but in the collision sound and stretching of the voice almost as the Spaniards or Moors in Afric if you have ever heard 'em as I have 'em both frequently singing in their own Countreys And thus not only one or two but all that are present do sing with a sweet and pleasant voice In such exercises the Ministers are the most frequent and chief Actors tho none of the rest are excluded but those that are foolish troublesome or strangers They don't only take heed what any of 'em says but also what forms or words he uses As many if not all things among 'em are singular so they agree to no other Communion but their ownâ— hence if a Cunning or Insnaring mocker come in and begin to ape their discourse or carriage with their words and looks they mark him as a scoffer and then forbids him or else thrusts him out And this is their publick worship In private they spend much time and pains in meditating praying reading especially the word of God in teaching their Servants and Children both in those Arts and Manners that concern civil Society and also in the worship of God and Christian Conversation with a lively instruction which they call Catechizing to which use they have books very properly adapted Moreover it 's also their custom in their houses never to express a Religious duty with an outward voice as praying to God craving his blessing e're they take meat or go to bed till they feel the excitation or impulsion of the Spirit while they want this they 're content to think with themselves what they esteem convenient and agreeable and talk silently with their own mind without External or vocal expression From whence arises the mistake of some and malicious calumny of others that the Quakers never pray unto God but like beasts rush upon every thing inconsiderately Which they wou'd bear more patiently came it only from the Rabble that 's ready to swallow up the belief of any thing and not from a seeming better sort of Men that pretend to digest speak or write nothing but what they 've put to the touch-stone for Confirmation Tho they 're greatly devoted to the Publick Worship of God yet they 're very averse to all Superstition which none but the unfortunate unwise or irreligious do ordinarily pursue Thus they often meet for the service of God For that they 've their Houses in some places very fair and large Out of these now you 'll seldom hear 'em disputing or discoursing with others of those things they 're willing to teach concerning their Religion or Duties of Christians though formerly in the Streets Markets and other's Churches they forbore not to declaim their petty preachings When I ask'd the Cause of their discontinuing that practice the same Necessity and Occasion remaining they gave no other Answer than That it is not now the Holy Ghost's Will They agree with some Protestants in owning no Holy-Days but they disagree in this a little wherein some Protestants also herd with 'em being displeas'd that the First Day of the Week is observ'd which from our Lord Jesus Christ we call the Lord's Day and that by the Force of the Fourth Command They indeed acknowledge it very necessary that a time be set a part for assembling to worship God in publick and that then Christians shou'd refrain from working and that the Lord's day is very proper for that purpose wherein the Apostles and Primitive Christians met in one place Therefore on this and other days they have publick Meetings as occasion offers In great and Populous Cities as London they often assemble almost every other day and that with such a confluence of people that when there can't so many be crowded together so as one may have way for another to get out some of 'em in the throng are taken with a â—unting
every Countrey of Europe desiring 'em to examine and return them an Answer The next year he wrote and publish'd his Apology a work greater and better known than that I need give account of it He sent two Copies of this book to every Princes Ambassadour at Niâ—iguen that met to treat of the Common peace that they might weigh and send it to their Prince for their Cognizance and Inquiry into the matter To each he added a double Letter of advice that as the burden of the Christian world was laid upon them so they might with all care and diligence endeavour according to their Incumbent duty to procure the rest and safety of Christians Nic. Arnold professor of the Theology in the College of Frizeland oppos'd a Theological Exercitation to these Theses wherein he bassles Barclay's opinion To this treatise Barclay answer'd by another piece shewing that Arnold did only repeat what has been often said by a changed expression A little after Tho. Brown a Scot Barclay's Country-Man one of the Preachers of the word of God who to the Number of 2000 were depriv'd of their Benefices for not submitting to the Regency of the Prelates wrote a thick and large Volume in English against the great treatise of Barclay in which Barclay taking him to mistake their meaning and therefore too much to expatiate and wander from the purpose answers him in the same Language putting neither more nor less in his book than what he thought necessary Afterward Joh. G. Bajerus Doctor and Professor of Theology at Jena a Lutheran publish'd the Doctrine concerning the beginning of the true and saving knowledge of God against Barclay's dissertation in his Theses and Apology who carping at some Expressions of Barclay as not proper but absurd and obscure from which no body could gather what Barclay did mean was answer'd by G. Keith Barclay being then taken up with other affairs a Man most skillful in Philosophy and Argument who against Bajer did plainly unfold the sence and meaning of his friend's words and in this reply so handled the whole Argument that afterward Bajer made never any return Lastly Joh. Chr. Holthusius a pastor addicted to the Ausburg Confession wrote a large treatise in the German Tongue worthy to be stil'd the Antibarclaian German since the Quakers has not hitherto answer'd it In this year 75 at Rome Mich. Molin a Spaniard a Priest and Doctor of Theology publish'd his book in the Italian Tongue to which he gave the Title of the Spiritual Captain In which book he reviv'd the Mystick Theology as they call it which for many years had lain Dormant in the Papacy who was Tutor and Pedagogue to a Number of Men for advancing that Doctrine of study and life The Sect was call'd Quietism and the followers Quietists from their singular Discipline which prescribes the laying aside External helps of coming to God meditation and reasoning by things outwardly Consider'd and Compar'd which are the first Elements that belong to these who begin to enter into Eternal Life and making only use of Divine Contemplation and the simplicity of faith Those who have made or desire to make great progress in the Celestial way must employ themselves intently with a ready will and ardent Love to receive and perceive God in themselves and suffer him to work in them by his Spirit while they wait for him with a quiet silence I shall add no more of this Man's Doctrine or its success as being known to the Learned Historians of our Age As ever since the Quakers name had its rise nothing among Christians in Religion Behaviour and Conversation scem'd to be hatch'd or invented with greater care or more resin'd and remov'd from the custom of the Vulgar but what was presently father'd on the Quakers Authority fellowship and patronage Thus in Italy and elsewhere many made the Quakers in England with their Creatures and Confederates the Sole cause and Original of this Sect and all the opinions thereupon following In like manner in England the Quakers were Reckon'd among the Religious crew which they call Mysticks and Branches of the Quietists drawing their common nature and temper from the same Root with one another This rumor and suspicion was the more increas'd that the Quakers especially Barclay in his Apology extraordinarily commended these ancient Mysticâ—s and not long after that Keith in his book call'd the way to the City of God which he publish'd in English did so teach confirm and advance that Theology that he seem'd to joyn with and strengthen the hands of the Quietists Because this opinion before was and as yet is so infix'd in the minds of many that the Quakers are of the flock of the Mysticks or that the Quietists and they don't much differ I shall pick out especially from Keith's book a short Summary of that Doctrine adding as little of my own as I can except where I 'm forc'd to put my own words for his without Impairing his meaning at all We ought says he to withdraw our selves from every vain thought earthly purely intellectual yea even Divine which are subjected to such words and propositions as fall under the force of Argumenting and Reasoning which draw their being from another original When God manifests himself in Man in the Seed of God which is in Man and hereby conveys himself into the mind of Man Man must betake and apply himself to God in the Seed of God 'twixt the influence and operation of God in him and only to give himself the leisure to wait for these feelings of the mind that proceed from God viz. The seeing hearing smelling touching tasting of the Spirit of the power the light and Life of God in Christ in that Seed And so it is agreeable to Man when he has thus converted himself unto God to persist and continue in that State with much patience tranquillity and silence before he fall to the use and exercise or daily business of his Lawful vocation When this happens In a little time the mind in some measure approaches to an holy and Divine life the beginnings of Spiritual Death Regeneration and Active operation It 's not then sit to do any thing without the certain Conscience and clear knowledge of faith but what the internal Guide and Spiritual Counseller and Instructor teacheth without that apparent assurance that the Spirit is arisen or raiseth himself in us and makes us inwardly to feel leave and liberty to do what the Spirit commands or suffers to be done And so it 's convenient at first to Act faith only by receiving and then exercising it as the Cion when first graffed into the stock first receives juice then grows and fructifies In these things that the rest of the Quakers both did and do agree it s scarce to be doubted Tho it sufficiently appears from what has been said that these Mysticks Molinists and Quakers do not so far differ in this Doctrine and Study as that one of 'em does either fear
Faith and utterly overturning the Foundations of it Altho these same men differed in their Opinions mightily amongst themselves and some as much from others as all of them differed from Keith's sentimeuts So as to that Article of the Human Nature of Christ some affirm'd that Christ never arose and ascended into Heaven as he was born of Mary and suffered on the Cross Others That Christ took that Body indeed out of the Sepulchre but in his Assention into Heaven laid it aside Others doubted of the whole business and could not tell what to pitch upon Some thought that all Controversy about such a thing as was not only controvertible or not worth the while and by reason of the slightness of the concern made nothing to the purpose of Faith however 't was decided These thought it the best way to lay down the Controversy and keep Peace As to the state of Souls after Death there was soâ—â— that held That all Faithful and Religious Persons immediately entered into the Compleatness of Joy and happiness but that the unbelievers and wicked instantly upon their Death underwent all that punishment that attends them and that herein consisted all the Resurrection Which was as much as to say That properly there will be no further Resurrection of the Body and that the Body after it is resolv'd into Dust shall be no where or nothing at all nor any future Day of Reckoning or of the last and general Judgment Others there were that said that the Resurrection and all the glorious Condition spoken of should at last be consummated and perfect in this Life for this Reason because Christ Arose and liv'd such a happy and blessed Life which in other words is all one as to say that there is no Heaven or Hell but what is within Men. These Opinions Keith took notice of and reprehended in these men's Discourses and Sermons as being contrary to the Articles of the Catholick Faith especially as they are propounded and declared to us in the Scriptures of the Old and New-Testament and told those of his Party That these men taught and dellvered such Doctrines as when they came throughly to understand they ought not to give any the least Entertainment to ' em At last in the year 91 there was an Experiment made to put an End to these Controversies in a Meeting of the Friends and Brethren Time and place was appointed by Common consent The two principal Adversaries Keith and Stocker dispute together with great heat and vehemence but such was the end of it that the difference instead of being compos'd was but so much the more increas'd Whereupon the cause was deferr'd to the General yearly assembly which that year was held at Philadelphia in September In which assembly the Doctrine of Keith was brought on the Stage For whereas Keith did not so much define as suppose or leave to be examined as truth what was attributed to him of the Transmigration of Souls and their state after their departure out of the Body therefore that was not call'd into question but this Whether to Preach faith in Christ within a Man and Christ without a Man is not to Preach two Christs There were six Sessions or Acts held about this in which notwithstanding there were so many Teachers indued with and taught and led by the Holy Spirit it self immediately as they call it and being of the highest form of Christianity yet they could not come to a Conclusion or Definitive sentence about this Controversy For the Disputants on both sides even in this Supreme and Sacred Council did so scold and rail one at another Keith's adversaries using all the Reproachful and Opprobrious Terms they could think of against his Doctrine inveighed bitterly against the Man himself and not onely so but also in a Contentious chiding way us'd a great many Scurrilous bitter words and that they might not seem to talk more than do they handled him very coursely and dragg'd and thrust him about very unhandsomly not that they were so furious by nature as Egg'd on by the cause they had in hand And on the other hand Keith and they that were of his side tho otherwise a Man of wit and sense enough yet at this time and on this occasion likewise not naturally or of his own accord but as he was forc'd to it and not able longer to contain his just resentments of their Injurious dealings with him at last broke out into invective Speeches against his Adversaries as being the Effects of his just Indignation against them not railing but giving them answers worthy of their heat and malice At last one urg'd another with the Terms of Dolts Fools Hereticks Infidels Heathens Profane wicked Wretches So they how far now these people in this case have forgot themselves both in Doctrine and Discipline and how far off they have been from that perfect Agreement and Absolute Modesty they pretend to as the more cautious and clear sighted have long and often suspected so now all both wise and unwise may easily see These wrangling Disputants being never a-weary those of the Brethren which were the presidents and moderators in this famous cause considering that by these endless Jarrs and Disputes of the contending partys the Fame and Glory of the Quakers Name was like to suffer made an end of this affair thus at last Reprehending both partys as indeed both were to blame they acquitted Keith and acknowledged his Doctrine concerning Jesus Christ to be true and right and order Stockade to confess himself to have dealt unfairly with Keith and give him satisfaction for the damage he has done him So for a while these Contentions ceas'd and all was quiet Now in this time of Peace and Quietness Tho. Fitzwater a Quaker Minister being puft up with the conceipt some people had entertain'd of his Wit and Learning in a certain Monthly Meeting accuses Keith of Hercsy for denying the light of Chirst to be sufficient for Men. Here again both sides were mightily heated and said many things of the suddain which was the more easily Excusable from the Trouble and Commotion of mind they were in Nor here could the whole Senate reconcile these two people or bring them to any Terms of Agreement Then the Case was reserv'd to another assembly to which were invited Tho. Lloyd the Governour and others of the Magiracy of the whole province that by their prudence and suffrages the matter might be brought to a Conclusion There Keith brought a great accusation against Stockade that he had not as yet given him satisfaction according to the decree of the former Council And here many quarrels 〈◊〉 out of one The Governour and Magistrates lay many things to Keith's charge At last the greatest part of Ministers and Elders incline on 〈…〉 Whereupon the Governours fall to him too And make an order of Council that Stockade himself shall Condemn himself of Ignorance and Infidelity Stockade denies to do any such thing and stands upon
Prudence and Moderation both of him and them that they urged one another with this Crime that each of them spread abroad detestable and cursed Doctrines and ensnared Men in them to the hazzard or loss of their salvation And Keith told that Bingly Vaughton and others when any of them seem'd to speak to another either not in good time or not readily or plainly enough because they first staid to meditate or wait the motion of the Spirit before they spake were us'd to nod one at another point or make signs to them to speak and if that would not do to pluck them by the sleeves and so to put them upon speaking Which certainly was not that that they had in their minds or what the Spirit mov'd them to speak which was contrary to the Doctrine and Fundamental Principles of these Men. But as there was neither Measure nor end of these disputes nor was there any respite of this Contention and Scold tho they were now grown hoarse again and it was not time as yet for them to break up Bingly and Waldenfield perswade the rest not to treat with Keith any further and so presently dissolving the assembly they go away and withal cause all the rest to do so to and disperse After they had left of dealing with Keith they consulted what was best to be done about him In which Consultation some of them complain'd with Relation to Keith that they had not the priviledge given them of speaking their minds and that there were some that by their talkativeness and proud way of speaking and with their looks and aspect took the words out of their Mouths or made them hold their Tongues or altogether silenc'd them there were others who were so frighted and overaw'd that they could not bring out what they differ'd and were of a contrary mind from others in And there were some also that dissemblingly and against their wills had spoken and who were sorry for what they had done and retracted from the sentence that was given At the last with the suffrages of the greatest part of them this decree was made and agreed to That Keith was of a Spirit no ways Christian and was the cause of these differences and divisions and openly Injurious to the Brethren And therefore that he had withdrawn and separated himself from the Holy Communion of the Church of Christ and was gone off from the power of Preaching and Praying in the Meetings of Friends Wherefore he was not to be accounted or receiv'd as one of them unless he first publickly confess'd his Crime and gave some tokens of amendment And moreover by the Acts of the Meeting this sentence was sent in Writing to all the Meetings of the Quakers all the World over That this Meeting in London was no ways concerned in the late differences in some parts of America tho now there was hopes things would succeed there better than formerly But that the Christian Advice and Councill that had been given to Keith and others in the yearly Meeting before Keith had openly in his Printed books set himself against and oppos'd and so betray'd himself to have turned aside from the peaceable Spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ and to persevere in the Spirit of Discord and Contradiction and by so doing has given great trouble and grief to the Church of Christ and especially to the last and likewise to this Meeting too And so that now they had born Witness against him untill he had truly repented and reconciled himself to the faithful friends and Brethren So then in this Meeting now so lately held when all hopes of reconciliation was taken away and no other end of any other advice likely to be and a Man Excommunicated and cast out whom the Generality of People looked upon as one of the most Ingenious and best defenders of the Quakers and their Religion this seem'd to be a Schism amongst Men so joyn'd and united together amongst themselves as they were And now redounded to their great disgrace thro' the accusations and sharp Speeches of those that withdrew from amongst them Wherefore these now are their Adversaries and now and then have a fling at them after this manner that now they may see themselves what a sort of Men they are and how much worse than those they would Condemn and this was laid to their Charge that having been free from Domestick jars within and fears from without of a long while that now with such intestine and deadly hatred strife and sedition they should fall together by the Ears amongst themselves instead of that Spiritual and Heavenly Wisdom and Prudence they always bragg'd of and that incredible Amity and Concord that by a nod or sign onely they could have had any thing one of another that it seem'd they would shew that those that formerly were so unconquerable without were now so very weak within and in a short time would fall by their own Weapons and that now the times were changed they would bring upon themselves the total loss of that liberty in hopes of which they promis'd themselves Perpetuity And thus much of the beginning progress and increase of these People and of their Actions and Sufferings in their own Country and those depending upon it to this very time in which that odious to be nam'd and terrible persecution is quell'd and taken off and not onely these Men but all those differing from the publick Churches are protected in their Civil Liberties in all those Countrys and peace and liberty of Conscience is established and that Confirm'd by the Laws Onely excepting Papists and Socinians and the like Propagators of the old Arian Heresy the causes and reasons of which I have treated on elsewhere Which Favour and Indulgence how it was granted to these people both by the equal bountys of that King than whom a better can't be wish'd for and to whom therefore all good Men wish a long and happy Reign especially being now alwaies in Arms and Venturing his life for the Common good and of his Queen who is lately deceased but her Soul being rendred to God the Memory of her lives and alwaies will do so to the latest surviving Posterity for those many and illustrious Virtues that concentred in her Royal Person and also by the joint Consent of the Lords and Commons in both Houses of Parliament assembled readily Complying with the Royal pleasure herein I have likewise before set forth This I must note before I go any farther that this prudence and clemency of the King and Queen and of those great Men was so much glorious to themselves and worthy to be acknowledged by these Men because in all the times aforepast there were not onely so many and great Vexations Prosecutions Afflictions unsufferable Slaughters every where laid upon all sorts of People which either indeed were Acted by Erronious Principles or the Pride and Envy of some Men had a mind to load with false Accusations as if they were very
that from that time the Labadists came to be call'd Quakers which name followed them from Amsterdam to Hereford and there accompanied them so that Men all abroad not only call'd them by the Name of Quakers which to them appeared as a horrible Title but also oftentimes us'd to throw Stones at them To avoid which reproach and withal to shew how much they hated both Name and Thing they out of their Printing-Office which they carried about with 'em publish'd a Writing by the Title shewing what the Argument of the Book was An Examination and Confutation of the Quakers Nevertheless after this there went to these Labadists in Friesland William Penn that most famous Man amongst the Quakers A Man of such Spirit and Wit as was both willing and able to encounter with all their Adversaries But the end of all was the same To which I will add this Relation That William Penn at this time being so near the Wood the Summer Residence of that Illustrious Lady the Princess of of whom as indeed she was and is a Princess who has a peculiar Talent of Wisdom and Piety and Greatness of Soul in asserting and promoting the Interest of Religion he had heard much talk and this Princess being now there present it comes in his mind and he intreats it as an extraordinary Favour that he may have the Liberty of Access to wait upon her Highness And she her self too having heard much of Penn admits him but so as what she had heard many say runs in her highness's mind that Penn was not the Man that he desired to be taken for but was either a Jesuit or else an Emissary of his King 's sent to sound the minds of the People and Grandees of this Country and therefore she fore-armes her self against him But when this Princess had admitted Penn to her Speech and he composes his Speech not with those Artificial Elegancies and Courtly Niceties which his former Inclination Education and Customs had enabled him to but with the highest gravity and as far as Religion would permit in the most exquisite terms he could devise and thinking this discourse might not be displeasing to the Princess at the end of it he begs leave to make a Sermon before her Highness To which the Princess to make short with him Answers that she had very good Preachers of her own whom he might hear and she had not far off David Fluda Giffen a Preacher worthy of such a Princess as who besides his natural parts Learning and sweetness of Conversation 〈◊〉 with Probity of Life and endued with a singular gift in Preaching was now the worthy pastor of the Church at Dort a Man to us well known and our very great friend Which Answer Penn taking in the stead of a civil Refusal with a chearful Countenance and in kind terms asks her Highness if in any other respect he might be serviceable to her and so takes his leave of her Highness Now from Friesland a province of our Belgium which is simply called Friesland I go on to that they call East-Friesland In that Countrey in the chief City call'd Embden in the 74th year of this Century there were a few Quakers that appear'd there of whom the Principal or chief Men were John William Haasbaard a Doctor of Physick John Borsome and Cornelius Andrews These Men began first to hold their Meetings privately afterwards more openly then to publish books of their Tenets to allure and invite the more to their Communion Which being known and growing publick to the Magistrates convened most of the Quakers before them into their Courts They appear there By the Magistrates order there came thither two of their Ministers one the Presidents of the Meeting of East-Friesland and another next to him Frederic Vlderic and John Alardin The Senate has under Deliberation that whereas as yet they did not rightly understand other than by Relations from other hands what the sentiments of these Men was what they did or what they aim'd at and pretended to that therefore it would be their best way to hear and understand these things from themselves least they should seem to pass a sentence upon people before they had heard or known what their Cause was and on the other hand if they were indeed found to be such as fame reported them that they might in due time obviate and prevent their attempts and mix them as it were in the bud before they grew to greater strength But when these Quakers appeared before the Magistrates they stood with their hats on and would not pull them off altho they were ordered so to do not out of Pride or from Innation or Contempt of them but because it was the Custom and Fashion of those of their opinion and they thought that such sort of honours were not due to Men. A great deal of Dispute there was about this business between the Quakers and those Ecclesiastical persons Which Discourse being drawn out to a great length and nothing brought to the purpose that was intended the Magistrate Haasbaard as being the principal and most skillful mannager of this affair that 2 days afterwards he should appear before a Convention of the Pastors and Synod of the Church and there before them state the Case of his Religion under the penalty of 10 Imperials Haasbaard refus'd this Meeting and appears not at the Stated day But the Quakers however go on and in the mean while and afterwards meet in Haasbaard's house Wherefore the Magistrate lays a fine upon them of 100 Imperials a time as often as they met together after that manner They take no notice of that neither So the Magistrate taking this as an affront to his Authority and Dispising of his gentle Government and Clemency concluded to take another course with this People Which yet before he would do he thought fit once again to try if he could pick out of 〈◊〉 Men what their Intentions desires and aimes were therefore the next day he causes them to be call'd into Court before him and together with them the two Ministers before mentioned were order'd to be present that they might Examine them about these things and maturely deliberate upon them For they thus thought that it was absolutely belonging to the Duty and Business of the Political and Ecclesiastical Order to look after and enquire what was done in the City and in the Church and with all Care and Diligence to provide and take Order that no Disturbance Faction Tumult or any pernicious Error Deceit or Seduction should arise and spread about among the People and that the Quakers themselves in this case ought not only to pay their Obedience to the Magistrates but also themselves of their own accord and free will by the impulse of their Religion and monitions of our Lord Christ and the Motions of the Holy Spirit not to decline the Exposition of what it was they insisted on and the Principles they so much Gloried in but with all
and unlearned Man and who besides the common English Books had ne're looked into any other nor could he Read them would by no means have it thought or doubted that this weighty Epistle â—o full of Learning and compos'd and written in so Elaborate a manner and with so much Pains and Study was not Written by him and his own Production and that he was not the Man who had daily perused all those Books and made them his own or that it was thus Written by a Multitude or whole Society of Men yet so as that they should leave it to the Judgment of one Fox an ignorant Fellow and upon his Approbation look upon it to be firm and good and he to approve of the same by the greatness and Authority of his Name affixed to it And hence it 's apparent that there is no mind so Humble but is apt to be carried away with the Air of Glory yea many times Glory and Applause is mostly coveted by those who most contemn it and endeavour to introduce a Contempt thereof glorying and taking Pride herein in that they despised all manner of Glory so much But however it were the Letter pleased the King and the Matter of it was very grateful to him insomuch that the King either by his own Authority or other Engagements brought it so about that they ceased to persecute them But the same Persecution was in a short time after revived and introduced upon them When Fox writes a new Epistle to the King and deprecates the Injuries and Dangers brought upon those People his Friends interceding with the King thereby on their behalf discovering now in this his Letter himself entirely as he was and not as before hand over head without all manner of shame and blushing Arrogating to himself the Work of other Men and a false praise But this Letter did not please the King so well so as either to purge them from what was laid to their Charge or to free them from their Sufferings These Quakers are even to the present time a prey and a laughing-stock to almost all the Inhabitants and they had long since been utterly ruined and destroyed all of them had it not been for a few among them that had some small Substance who out of their own Necessities have sustained them under their oppressive Poverty And had it not been also for those Quakers in Holland who are superiour to these in Fortunes and Estates And now that I may pass over nothing that may appertain to the State and Concerns of the Quakers before I depart from these Men in Germany It will not be impertinent to insert the short History of those Men lately sprung up in Germany and who still coverse and are scattered up and down in divers parts of the same Country which are called by the name of Pretists and whom many look upon as the Brood and Offspring of the Quakers or Enthusiasts sprung up again in these times and being as it were lopped off grow again and bud out from the old Stock concerning which Men there are many who have taken upon them to write who have discovered themselves to have heard and imagined more things concerning them than they really know but I shall not take in all herein but will leave out the larger passages and only take notice of the Principal Heads For seeing that in so great a multitude of Christians as well else where as in Germany who declare themselves to be the Disciples of blessed Luther and to follow his Doctrine and way of Living most of them all were indeed affected with a great desire of and love to their Religion but yet retained through great Ignorance and intollerable superstition the observance of some Rites and Ceremonies and which in very deed had little or nothing in common with some Religion Piety and Holiness and this was not so abstruse but that it was apparent to all so as that they might behold it with their Eyes and handle it with their Hands yea and the same was now consined and as it were â—ealed by examples and manners some Godly Men zealous towards God and for the good of Men and such as were also both Learned and Experienced bethought themselves that it was every ones duty with the utmost care and Diligence to heal or cut off this Malady or Pestilence in the Church which crept dayly more and more into Men's Lives and Conversations Among these in the Year sixty one one Theophilus Brosgeband a Deacon of the Lutheran Church in the City of Rostock in the Duchy ef Mâ—chelenburg sets up in Opposition to these Practices and so in a book written by him in the German Tongue sets forth and notes the various Errors that the Lutherans were conscious of and at the same time speaks moderately and gently concerning the Controversies that were between the Lutherans and other Reformed concerning the Lord's Supper and sets down his own Opinion in the matter with his Reasons for the same He was indeed a man that studied and was a lover of Concord and Peace between Friends who held the same Faith which is very good and the very name delectable but he got little Praise and Thanks for his Pains nay this his labour and endeavour went scarce unpunished for there were many Persons that forthwith fell at variance with him hereupon reviled him were very bitter against and troublesome to him which he by his long-suffering and patience wore out and diverted After this Henry Muller became one of this number who in the same City was Teacher and Professor of Divinity in the Church and University and a Person of exquisite Learning and Piety and who about five or six years after Brosgeband did in like manner reprove those of his own Religion concerning their Errors and Lives and Conversations that were unsuitable to Religion and especially in a book written also in the German Tongue that it might come into the hands of all those to whom it did more peculiarly belong handling that Passage of the Apostle Paul which is in his First Epistle to the Corinthians 12. c. 2. v. in which place the Holy Apostle that he might make way for to shew to those Men how much they were now Honoured and Enrich'd by the Spirit of God puts them in mind how in times past they were carried away to dumb Idols led and driven thereunto by unclean Spirits he wrote that Christians now a-days had not left their dumb Idols whereunto they cleaved to whom they attributed all things neglecting true Religion and setting true Godliness at naught to wit The Pulpit from whence they Preach to the People The Baptismal Font The Confessor's Tribunal and the Altar By which words many that were of the same Function with him took themselves to be much Inspired and so lookt upon him to be their Enemy and did not only content themselves with injuring of him in his fame and the esteem had of him and seeing that the Name of
the Quakers was at this time very rife every where in Germany and that the same especially with the rude multitude and men of the most abject Condition who catch hold of all things without any distinction of Truth or Falshood was much envied and hated and not free from danger There was a certain Person of some note at Hamburg for the thing may be said without nameing his Name though of no great fame as to his Learning and of an immoderate and proud Disposition and full of words who was so transported with Rage against Muller that he accused him and laid to his charge That he was not only guilty of other Errors but more especially of Quakerism and thus by stirring up the People did as it were enforce the Laws with Menaces that he should desist and proceed no further which matters Muller though he was willing but not able to bring about to his designed purpose yet he was desirous to be freed from the scandal cast upon him and to remove the ignominy â—â—rging That he introduced no perverse or strange Doctrine and was not the man his Enemy represented him to be which he brought so about that having got the clear Testimonies of several Professors in the Universities of his Orthodoxy and of Doctors in Churches he Published the same in his Apology and set them in opposition to the Reflections and Scandals cast upon him by his Enemies Now Philip James Spener Minister at Francford upon the Mease of a Church Constituted according to the same Augustine Confession did within a few years prosecute the Foot-steps of these Men as also John Heariâ—k Harby Minister of a Church of the same Confession at Trarback on the Mosel both of them men of that Industry and Conversation as to be able easily to keep up the Fame of their great Learning and Probity and not be thought to seek after the Favour and Glory of Men herein these Men did in their Publick Sermons Discourses and Private Exercises bend all their Endeavours this way that they might extirpate and root up these Evil Weeds and Thistles from Mens minds Spener began his Work with those things which did more immediately incuâ— into the Senses of Men and which seemed to imitate and have relation to Popery that was so hateful to the Lutherans by reason of the dull foolish and profane Rites and Ceremonies that are therein and such as are not barely estranged from true Worship and Sanctity to wit in their Churches and Publick Assemblies and particularly in their Pompous Tables Organs Altars Priestly Garments c. And from hence he proceeds to other things which men do measure by use alone and meer handling so as that a pretty number of People in a short space of time did by his means not only Loath all that Pompousness in their Churches but also laying aside many other external Rites applyed themselves to Exercise the true Faith and Life of Christians But this was not all but they did often times meet together in their Houses and so did instruct and exhort one another every one as well as they were enabled out of the Holy Scripture to follow the same Sincere Life and Faith and to do all the Duties incumbent upon them towards Men Hereby also in the same manner by his Instructions did so stir up and affect the Minds and Consciences of his Hearers that very many of them in those places and adjacent to the Rhine did often times meet together in one place and this they did assume as a common Rule and constant Practice among them that laying aside those Discourses which concerned Questions and Disputes or idle and unnecessary Enquiries which were more fit for the Schools than for the Formation of Manners they only imployed themselves herein that having come to know and discern Christian Truths without which Faith and a Christian Life cannot be they insisted upon the ways and means how to attain to this Life and Faith and Instructed and Exhorted one another in shewing and exercising of the Same Spener is called from Francford to Drosden into the Elector's Court there to exercise the Office of Chief Preacher and seeing there were many things to be Corrected and Amended in the Court and that this could not be done by gentleness and pleasant Artifice but by a Tragick Gravity and severity and that there was not besides this such a number and choice of then for the purpose which withal required one endued with much Religion and Goodness in the mean time there were some Students in the University of Lipsick designed and appointed for the Ministerial Office they were only two at first that began to stir in this matter and this they made the chief exercise of their capacities this was the bent of their studies that being themselves stored with this knowledge and exercised in this sort of Life they might afterwards teach their Auditors committed to their care the like documents and stir them up to the same and therefore they daily instructed their people and held their Assemblies and did not only urge their Discourses from the Scripture-Authority but did draw out from the proper and Genuine Fountain of Divine writ 〈◊〉 excellent order the meaning of one or more places and the mind of the Holy Spirit and the Energy of Faith and true Piety and adopted them to the certain uses and cases of Men every one according to the Conscience and Experience he had in such a thing and setting this for a rule in these words to be observed by all That the sacred Books of the Old and New Testament are to be read expounded and converted to various uses to the glory of the sacred Trinity to the increase of the New Man of holy Instruction and exegetical Divinity as also to an example of an holy Couversation They were termed the Philobiblick Colledges These Students Endeavours and Studies were some time after imitated by others and even by such as were of greater years and Masters themselves so that some of them handled the same with the Professors Consent in the Publick Auditories in their Academical Lectures the Chief whereof were Augustus H. Francus the Disciple and Companion for a long time of Spener and John L' Schadeus Francus's Chamberber-Fellow both of them Masters of Art and Learned and Eloquent There was moreover a new Accession of Citizens and of women too to these Collegiates who also encouraged their Pastors and Guides in Divine Things to the same work but as for the most part it happens in such Assemblies there was in process of time so great a desire in some to frequent these Colledges that some Students declined to go to the Publick and Private Schools some of the People would not go to the Churches some despised them others went thither to partake only of the Lord's Supper sparingly and some disregarded all other ordinances and institutions in comparison of these Congregations and Meetings But these Students were for the most part persons
those impetuous Spirits For seeing that all the rest except those two Colleagues aforesaid stuck to Horbius's side there was at that time very great Dissention and Strife between those Pastors who stood in opposition to Horbius and those that were on his part and that by Sermons Pamphlets and Letters every one according to his Faculty in Speaking or Writing putting forth his utmost in defence of his side and in opposition to his Enemies and placing the victory in the last action untill at length the matter was brought to that pass by the Interposition and Authority of the Senate Magistrates and Supream Power of the City a special and principal Remedy for such sort of divided Men and Assemblies that all the quarrel and difference in Words and Writings was taken off by an Amnesty as they call it or General Act of Indemnity and each of them were to forgive what was past as much as all good Men hoped it would be so It 's sad to consider what a vast number of things have been written all this time through all Germany that is of the Lutheran Religion not in the Latin Tongue save a very few but in the German Language that so now the whole Dispute which so many Learned Men could not find an end to should be equally committed to the Judgment of the Learned and Unlearned and especially be the entertainment of the vulgar and abject sort of Mankind whose Judgment they who thus contended are so far from expecting that they even Despise and desire not to have them named with them In the mean time we must pretermit that the Quakers abiding elsewhere and very well knowing and retaining an account and the particulars of all their own Conveniences neglected nothing wherein they thought there was any thing to their Advantage that might be done in this Commotion and Division of these Men. They had certainly in those places at this time a certain Hope wrought in them and their Spirits were raised with some joy that it might come thereby to pass that there should be such Persons that would Judge more favourably of the Doctrine of the Quakers and that perhaps they would apply their Minds to them the Words of their Epistle in an Anniversary Meeting at London the preceeding year writ to all the Churches of the Quakers bear witness hereunto which were to this purpose That they had Thoughts and some Hopes that the falling out of the Lutherans in those places amongst themselves might tend to a farther Discovery and Promotion of the Truth in those Parts Moreover there was in Germany as it were three sorts of Pietists pardon the expression One which I have described consists of those who sought and pressed nothing else but sincere Religion and true Piety and the greatest part of those are among the Learned and better sort of men through Saxony and all Germany Another sort of them was that cryed That the Church was much Corrupted and loved Piety but such who themselves on the other hand stagger not a little in the Faith and True Religion and these same are commonly less moderate and more violent in Celebrating their Assemblies together These came near the Weiglian Sect and such sort of Fanatical People that sprung up about an hundred year ago and not dead in all that intermediate time in Misnia and other Countries about who imagined as if it had been an Opinion not yet received in the Church and yet necessarily to be delivered That there is one certain Divine Seed in all Men and that God and Christ do so infuse themselves into Men that they are one Moreover That man becomes God and Christ and that so he ought to Worship God and Christ in himself and a great deal more of such stuff Which Tenents seeing they were of themselves very obscure and incomprehensible or only an empty sound without any Sence they by their winding cants did yet further involve and make more intricate and these men dreamt of I know not what Millenary Kingdom and Golden Age and continued watching among all who should be no longer Mortal in which Kingdom all things should be restored to their former state and condition and the Blessed abound with all Spiritual and Corporal Pleasures and Delights and should be satisfied at a Thought in what they desired or Wished from the Divine and Celestial Affluence of the Holy Spirit wherefore seeing that they now thought the same time was at hand They so settled their Rules that laying aside all Controversies among Christians they now with one mind by mutual instructions and exhortations looked to that Kingdom prepared themselves for it and invited other men unto it and made it their business so to do The Third sort of them was that which may be called Behmists or Teutonists these called back as it were Jacob Behman the Shoemaker of Garlingen in Silesia from the Dead who was called Tutonick and did both Broach those Opinions which had been really delivered by him as also those Errors that had been falsly laid upon him and ascribed to him yea and horrid and hellish Blasphemy and cried them up as worthy of all Esteem and Glory But before I give the particulars hereof I do not think it absur'd to say somewhat concerning the Doctrine and Writings of this Behman and the rather because of the great variety of Opinions and Observations of Learned and famous Men concerning them He had wrote and published in the German Tongue some Books or rather Pamphlets wherein as he would perswade himself he discovered many things necessary to be known or the Foundations of true Religion and Piety in dark words disjoyned from the usual and known names and such as he that would could not perceive and apprehend producing some of his own and adding as his own invention some other things which he had heard or road else where But when it came to pass as it often happens that those Germans especially the Lutherans who Assumed to themselves the Appellation of Learned Men and who were eager in a search after Knowledg Science and Truth and durst attempt any thing and were already puffed up with their own and other mens Opinions concerning the Excellency of their Learning alight upon these Notions these as coming nigh unto Behman's Principles but looking upon them yet to be ruder and as it were but rough drawn as being what he had only begun they go on to compleat them and from the Store-house of their own Wisdom build up and heap together many Opinions but such as were Monstrous and Horrid and digest them into books and Publish them and render the Behman Name well known in Germany Holland and England by their writing in those several Languages Some things also they Publish'd in Latin and they prove and extol the whole with a wondrous Character as if they were Golden Books and to be got all by Heart by those who followed the Christian Religion and loved their own Everlasting Salvation In the
mean as every Man has his Freedom to Judg there were various Judgments made concerning the Writings of Jacob Behman himself some thinking moderately concerning them and tho there were some Light things and mistakes in them yet they adjudged there was no Heresy contained in them but others again determined otherwise that they were very Heretical Writings to which some added also that they had been all written by a Man who if he was not stark Mad was yet highly disturbed in his Mind and Understanding and that he himself had afterwards confest the same thing when he came to his right Mind and so at length by confessing and bewailing his own Temerity and unconsiderateness as indeed it was highly to be Rejected as being foolish and unfruitful as to any good yet his Offence pardoned by his Country-men the Silesians wherein because the Fame of the Man has certainly been injured I do not think it impertinent to declare in a few words what his case was and how terminated as to the Event thereof therefore seeing there were such various Opinions concerning this Man made by the World the Elector of Saxeny caused him to come to Drâ—sâ—â—â—â— and there to present himself and be Examined and stand to the Judgment of certain Divines who after they had seriously and attentively Examined him and tryed his Sentiments also as to every Article of faith and what he meant in his Books which he had Published they not only Absolved him of Heresy but did moreover acknowledg he had in him some singular gift from God and dismist him in Peace which Examination and Matter of Fact when Anthony Wock who kept the Princess Archicus about 15 years ago took â—otice of in his History of Dresden and that he transmitted the same Work to Noremburg to be printed and Published there the Censors of Books who were better pleased that this passage concerning Behman should not be known and that the Work of Dishonour already put upon him might remain quite struck out this Part of the History that related to Behman's Examination and the event thereof But 〈◊〉 that in the great Dissention and Contention between the Ministers of Hamburg those Men would not also leave Behman alone but condemned him as an Heretick Ph. J. Spener who judged more favourably concerning him consulting the Man's Credit and fearing least an Error once seising upon the Minds of Men should by continuance attain to a suspicion of Truth and utterly take away the Man 's good Name which was hitherto in suspence did in a certain Writing of his in opposition to the Hamburgers shew the whole matter as it was transacted at Dresden according to what Wâ—ck had wrote and affirm the same as having seen and read the Original Writing himself taken out of the Elector's Archives and who indeed is a Person worthy of Commendation and Credit But Behman returning into his own Native City when after an hard Sickness he drew near unto his last end he had the Lord's Supper Administred to him by the Minister of the place according to the manner of the Lutheran Church and when he had there paid his last Debt to Nature he was by the Magistrates command honourably Buried and a Funeral Sermon Preach'd for him And now to return to the matter I was upon the Results of these mens Inventions and Toyl some of them interpreting Behman's Writings one way some another way and while in the mean time they endeavoured to increase and also to amend them basely depraving of them was this as to the Substance thereof for there is no need to relate the singular Distinctions therein as there is no occasion to seâ— down this stuff it self but for these mens sakes who cease not to blab it out and to breath it into and infect the unwary with their stinking breath and for them who are not aware of it but when once they discern it will hate and shun the same for ever that God is one Essence but a Threefold Principle in a Successive Order That he is the Spring of and doth influence all things to wit a fire wherein there is the Light Understanding and Wisdom of God which is the Son of God and Oyl wherein that Light of God burns which is the holy Spirit And that in this manner all and singular things are for God of his own proper Nature and that of Three Principles which Three Principles are in Nature called by the Name of Sulphur Salt and Water Moreover That God created all Things in Number Weight and Measure which so again consist in various Divine Delicacies especially in the Rational Creatures as being those in whom God hath as it were created himself so as to divide a Particle of his own certain Quality into New Creatures Lastly That Man restored shall enjoy the Element of Gracious Light which Element is Christ himself and that the holy Spirit shall rest upon him for his further Vivification It 's needless to add the rest These same Sentiments of these Men which I believe they acquired by revealing upon but not understanding the Platonick Writings by polishing and mixing of them they heaped up together into a Book And this which is not Christian Theology but is uttered by men that think themselves in their Right Wits rather a War of the Giants against Heaven and in reference to the matter thereof not only unconceivable and horrible but so as to the words also was esteemed by these men among whom tho there were some who tho their Noddles were not souud altogether yet there were certainly others of sound Understanding and in their right Wits yea active learned and industrious laying aside these Sentiments and Speeches as some very subâ—il and sublime Contemplation and Knowledge of God if any such could be in the World This they called Mystical Theology they made so much account thereof that unless any one had attain'd to it held it and profest it he knew nothing of Divine Matters If any denied it they adjudged him by no means capable of Salvation On the other hand their Adversaries looked upon this their Theology to be so gastly and even terrible to be uttered and upon all the Writings which these Teutonicks put forth with so hard 〈◊〉 Censure as if written not with Ink but with a Peâ— dipped in the bitterest Gall and guided by the Devil and so as if they contained nothing else but a Collection of the most vile foolish and base things with idle words and dotages and they adjudged him that agreed thereunto and approved of them worthy to be expelled and far enough removed from all Christian Community seeing they forbad their people to read or as much as to look upon those Writings and so there was not so much as place allowed these men in these provinces The Principal Leaders and Ensign-bearers of these new Pietists were certain Doctors of Wirtemburg whose Doctrine was scattered not only among their Scholars who constantly heard them and followed them and
well Bnt that in some of my Writings I had said somewhat of the Existence of Christ the Heavenly Man before he assumed Flesh in the Womb of the Virgin I see not by what just manner he would fix it on me that I held a Two-fold Humanity of Christ as if there were Two Men Christs the one Heavenly the other Earthly and Corporeal unless by such a method of Arguing he would infer from the Scripture it self that every Man is Two Men as consisting of a two-fold Humanity Because Paul after a Mystical-way familiar to the Jews Writeth of an inward and outward Man And perhaps by such manner of Arguing one given to quibbles of arguing might study to prove out of Scripture that many men have four Humanities for beside that the Scripture speaketh of our inward and outward Man which are Soul and Body it speaketh also of the Old Man which we are bid put off and the New Man which we are to put on But if this Author or any other charge me with an Error in this point that I hold that the Mediatory Soul or Spirit of Christ did exist before he assumed Flesh it is not enough with bare words to blame me for Error without solid Argument but let them produce solid Arguments if they have any to convince me and solidly answer my Arguments I have brought from Scripture by which I judge I have proved my Assertion Nor am I singular in that case that I believe that Christ the Mediator did exist before he took flesh although not in whole yet in some part and respect even from the Beginning of the World to wit in respect of his Mediatory Celestial Soul and Spirit for diverse Pious men even among Protestants have affirmed the same no less than some Jewish Doctors and also some Gentile Philosophers had the same perswasion for because they did observe that the highest and lowest beings in the Universal Creation were joyned by certain middle Beings hence they concluded very agreeably to Reason that there was some mediatory Being i. e. a Mediator betwixt God that infinite and infinitely high Being and Mortal Men who being compared with God are justly to be esteem'd but as dust and ashes before him as indeed the Saints did express the same and especially that excellent and most humble Man Abrham called in Scripture the Friend of God the Father of the Faithful and Heir of the World did so humble himself before God that he called himself dust and Ashes P. 446. Then according to that Dogma to inculcate this unto all that Christ as he was Born of Mary is united with the Divine Nature and so is present with his Light and with his Life in all the Children of God The Annot. And here also he doth not rightly declare my Faith for by the Presence of Christ in all the Children of God I do not understand that the External Person of Christ or the Body which was Born of Mary is in them nor yet the Soul of Christ in respect of its center or of the fullness of virtue which only and alone dwelleth in the External Person and Body of Christ that was Born of the Virgin But this I say as the like I have said many years ago and have Writ in diverse of my Books published in Print that a certain ray or substantial influence is derived from out of the Man Christ in Heaven and floweth into the hearts of the Faithful after such manner as the Beams of the Sun that are truely substantial come out form the Center of the Sun and pass into the Earth and the Fruits of the Earth to make them grow and come to maturity the which similitude and diverse others the Scripture frequently useth as that of the Vine and Branches the Head and Members of Man's Body P. 455. They publish a Book which they call The Plea of the Innocent against the false Judgment of a Guilty Man The Annot. For a guilty Man read guilty Men for the word guilty is as well Plural as singular and in the Title of our Book we understand the word guilty in the Plural for there were Twenty eight Men guilty in giving forth that false Judgment P. 459. That Keith called another Man of the Magistracy by such a Name that Englishmen doubt of its signification The Annot. Every Englishman almost knoweth what is intended by that Name or Word answering to the Latine word Nebulo or Nequam which word Nebulo is derived from the Hebrew word Neâ—al as those who are skilfull in the Hebrew and Latine affirm which is of the same signification and is given in Scripture to False Teachers and to other bad Men. And let the Impartial Judge whether that Person was not worthy of such an Appellation who though professing himself a Christian did affirme boldly to me before diverse Witnesses that he did not expect to be saved by that which died at Jerusalem to wit the Man Christ that was Crucified at Jerusalem Surely if a Jew had said this it had been more tolerable but that one called a Christian and reckoned of the First Rank among Christians should spue out his Filth so Blasphemously against the Saviour of the World and so wickedly might have moved any Christian having the least grain of true Faith not only to call him so but somewhat more hard And the same Person did vehemently urge me at that same very time I so Named him that I would submit my Self and my Faith to that Meeting wherein I so called him in that Question Whether God was present in all his Creatures Some in that Meeting and these even Ministers openly denying it for so he spoke to me because I refused to submit my Faith and Conscience in that Question to the Determination of that Meeting Will thou not submit to the Church Doth not the Spirit of God speak in the Church Doth the Spirit speak in Trees because I had affirmed that the Spirit was in Trees What more I pray doth the Church of Rome presume yea I know not If she doth presume so much that if she determineth that there is no God or which is the equivalent that God is not every where present her Members must stand to her Determination And because I refused to submit my Faith to the Determination of that Meeting in that Question Whether God be present in all his Creatures that Meeting would not give any Judgment in the case And as I heard afterwards that man was of the Magistracy but obscurely put in and known to few and not at all to me as such nor was he any Magistrate in that place when I spoke that Word And I observe that this very Author in this History P. 376. hath called a certain Frenchman a Papist who had sometime ago writ some false things against the People called Quakers by the like name to wit Nequam impurum hominem A Knave and filthy Man And I doubt not but he doth remember how frequently
dead and hypocritical Faith I never did contend with any nor do I at present Yet this doth not hinder but that many both in England and throughout Christendom consisting of divers Professions under the common name of Christians have a sincere and living Faith of Christs Death and Sufferings c. which doth greatly profit them to Eternal Salvation P. 115. Which when it is brought to pass viz. the New Birth Christ who is altogether Holy and Righteous doth exist live and work in that Man and by that the same Man becometh just by the righteousness of Christ existing in that Man The Annot. He doth truly enough here relate what is the judgment of many yea the greatest part of the Ministers of that People who do not distinguish betwixt the Righteousness of Justification whereof a great part is Forgiveness of Sins by and for Christs Sake and for his Merits Sake apprehended by a sincere and effectual Faith and the Righteousness of Sanctification whereby the Faithful are made inwardly Holy and Righteous by the inward Virtue and Life of Christ and of the Holy Spirit inwardly working in the Hearts of the Saints which sanctifying Virtue and Power only true Believers in Christ Crucified do feel and experience and in this I differ from them and in many other things as I have heretofore done P. 116. And so indeed they did admit and receive a Ministry of the Gospel but such as every Christian ought to undergo although in a distinct degree by the alone impulse of the Holy Spirit without the Call of Men. The Annot. Yea not only without the Call of Men but without all Examination or Trial whether they who profess they are moved by the impulse of the Holy Spirit to the Ministry are able and qualified to undergo that Office being instructed and endued with Spiritual Gifts of Knowledge and Doctrine Whereby it comes to pass that very many both Males and Females among that People are suffered to exercise the Office of Preaching in their publick Meetings who are very sottish and miserably ignorant in the first Elements and Rudiments of the Christian Doctrine And this most vile Error and Practice hath brought in so great Ignorance and Blindness among them which men but meanly instructed in the matters of Christian Doctrine and Faith can scarce enough admire George Keith Some other short Annotations correcting some mistakes in the Author of this History with respect to some other particulars and one or two Observations Pag. 273. That the Quaker that foretold the burning of the City of London lived at Hereford The Annot. This I think is a mistake he belonged I suppose to Huntingtonshire P. 321. Afterwards Solomon Eccles went into New England where in a certain Speech with a vehement contention of Wrath he pronounced a certain judgment to come upon a particular Person as if he had been commanded of God to do it which Oracle when it failed c. The Annot. This is a great mistake as to the place which was not New England for he was then in old England somewhere in the West towards Bristol the sentence or false Prophecy being by him pronounced against John Story an ancient Preacher among that People who never was in New England The great and only offence that Solomon Eccles and his Party had against him being that he did not agree in all Points to some Orders and Methods of Church Discipline given out by G. Fox especially about Womens Government in the Church which John Story and many others did think the other party did extend too far and did too severely and rigidly impose upon their Brethren But after the time of this false Prophecy was expired John Story lived some years against whom nothing was ever justly objected either as to his Doctrine or manner of Conversation And though what the Author writes in true that Solomon Eccles aferwards when he had the experience that his Prophecy was vain and false did by a publick Writing confess his Error yet too many of his party greatly sought to extenuate his Crime by alledging that it was true as to substance though it failed as to the circumstance of time and I did not hear that for any time Solomon Eccles was put to Silence and a stop put to his Ministry for that trespass though it was very great for if Men but flatter their Ministry great Trespasses will be connived at but if any deal plainly and roundly with them and tell them their Faults it shall be esteemed next degree to impardonable Sin P. 438. The Propriety and Government of Pensilvania being void by the Death of William Penn the Elder from whom also the possessive name of that Country together with the Propriety and Government of it passed to his Son William Penn. The Annot. This is also a mistake for though William Penn had a considerable Estate that came to him by his Father yet his Father was never in the possession of either the Propriety or Government of Pensilvania but it came to him wholly after his Fathers Death as is known to many and the name of Pensilvania took its Rise from the Son and not from the Father which name as was commonly reported was given to the Country by King Charles II. who gave him the Country and its Government P. 570. That Esther Biddel said She was by the Instigation of God moved to pray the French King that he would make Peace with God and with the Nations c. The Annot. How is it probable that God would send a Message to the French King by such an ignorant Person and so great an Unbeliever in Christ Crucified unless we could suppose that such a Miracle was wrought as when God opened the Mouth of the Ass to reprove the madness of Balaam the said Esther Biddel being heard by many in a publick Meeting of the Quakers on a first day at the Savoy a little before her pretended Message to the French King so to Preach Friends Keep in your minds to Christ the Light in you and let not your minds go forth to a Christ without you for in the beginning Friends did not direct us to Christ without us but to the glorious Light of Christ within us in which Anti-Christian Doctrine another in that same Meeting did oppose her Note Some very small Additions are put in by the Author of the Letter betwixt by way of Explanation to make some things in the Letter more plain Something Added in Behalf of the People called Quakers both with respect to the Historian and also G. Keith ANd therefore after the perusal of this History and George Keith's Letter added it 's desired this may seriously be considered it being mostly taken out of a Book of George Keith's printed by him Anno 1692 Intituled A Serious Appeal Wherein he takes notice of Directions for weak and disâ—empered Christians and saith may be of some service to that Injured People called in Scorn Quakers p. 1. From my own
Jesus Christ the Son of the Living God to whom the Prophets and Apostles give witness and who in the fullness of Time took Flesh of the Seed of Abraham and of the Stock of David We confess to his Miraculous Conception by the Power of the Holy Spirit overshadowing of the Virgin Mary and to his being Born of her according to the Flesh and that he took upon him a Real Body and that he was a Real Man and that in the Days of his Flesh he Preached Righteousness wrought Miracles was Crucified being put to Death by Wicked Hands and that he was Buried and Rose again the Third Day according to the Scriptures and after he Rose he really appeared to many Brethren and afterwards he ascended into Glory according to the Wisdom and Power of the Heavenly Father and is Glorified with the same Glory which he had with the Father before the World began being ascended far above all Heavens that he might fill all things whose Glory is Incomprehensible And we also believe That he is that one Mediator between God and Man viz. that Intire Perfect Heavenly and most Glorious Man Christ Jesus who ever lives and endures in his Soul or Spirit and Glorious Body We further believe That according to his Promise to his Disciples before he left them viz. That he would come unto them again and that he that was with them should be in them and they in Christ and Christ in them John 14. 20. and that accordingly he came and that he who appeared in that Body which was prepared for him was full of Grace and Truth and received the Spirit not by measure appeared by a measure of his Grace and Spirit in his Apostles and Disciples and doth since in all his Faithful Followers And that he is their King Prophet and High-priest and Interceeds and Mediates in their behalf bringing in Everlasting Righteousness Peace and Assurance for ever into their Hearts and Consciences to whom be everlasting Honour and Dominion Amen Concerning the Soul's Immortality and the Resurrection WE believe our Souls are Immortal and shall be preserved in their distinct and proper Beings and shall have Spiritual Glorious Bodies such as shall be proper for them as it shall please God to give them in the Resurrection that we may be capable of our particular Rewards and different Degrees of Glory after this Life in the World to come Griffith Owen John Wilsford George Maris John Adams Nicholas Walln William Biles Robert Owen John Lynam John Humphreys Caleb Pusey Alex. Beardsley Samuel Richardson Ralph Jackson Richard Gove Richard Ormo William â—outhby David Lloyd Samuel Jennings Thomas Duckett Thomas Janney Arthur Cooke John Symcock Robert Ewer Samuel Carpenter Phin. Pemberton John Bevan Cadder Morgan Richard Walter Lewis David Edward Jones Reece John William Griffith â—ohn John Roberts Robert Jones Robert David William Edward Edward Rees Thomas Jones James Fox FINIS Jo. 1. 1 2 3. Mic. 5. 2. Eph. 3. 9. Col. 1. 15. Heb. 1. 3. Joh. 2. 14. Heb. 2. 16 17. Heb. 4. 15. 1 Cor. 15. 3 4. Jo. 8. 3. 1 Jo. 3 8. Eph. 5. 2. Heb. 9. 12. Heb. 9. 14. Rev. 13. 8. 1 Cor. 10. 4. Heb. 13. 8. 1 Pet. 2. 21. 2 Cor. 4. 11. Phil. 3. 10. Isa 57. 17. 2 Cor. 6. 16. Rev. 3. 20. 2 Cor. 13. 5. Col. 1. 27. i Tim. 2. 5 6. 1 Jo. 2. 1 2. Heb. 7. 25. Heb. 2. 11. 2 Pet. 1. 4. Jo. 17. 21 22 23. 2 Cor. 5 10 11. 1 Cor. 15. 37 38 44. 50. Rom. 15. 4. 2 Tim. 3. 15 16 17 2 Pet. 1. 20 21.
those who conceal and are asham'd to own their poverty of the Orphans widdows old people the afflicted and miserable and the sick unto whom they are to afford what is necessary for their sustenance and relief for which end the Quakers say they make Contributions of Money putting it into chests and distributing it as they have occasion These Men are also to allot every one their particular offices and functions which they are severally and distinctly to perform Stephen Crisp wrote a monitory Epistle to all Churches concerning these offices which is very well worth any Man's reading All the Quakers when ask'd about these matters do mightily extoll and magnify the diligence liberality and bounty of their Associates one to another However these Elders and the Ministers do frequently convâ—â—n among themselves for deliberating about the affairs of their Sect and the necessities of their Church which Conventions are somewhat like to what the English and Dutch call Presbyteries and Synods and the French Consistories There were of them in Holland who because no Society could be laudable and permanent without Government and Laws propos'd to have an Ecclesiastical senate constituted in every Church consisting of the ancient Elderly Men and such as were married excluding Batchellours who should have the Government lodg'd in their hands and order every thing according to certain Rules and Laws laid down by them But others oppos'd it pretending that it would introduce a new Hierarchy and interrupt their Community and restrain and suppress the gifts of the Spirit They have likewise Meetings like to those we call Classes and provincial and national Synods or Councils These conventions are Celebrated oftner or Seldomer as the number and variety of their Churches is but so as to Allot each Sex Men and Women their distinct and particular Meetings Wherefore if the Churches be more numerous or large the Seniors or Elders with the Ministers meet frequently chiefly on the first days of the weeks and also on other days at which time after having Communicated their thoughts one to another they confer and consult together what is to be every Man's task what part of the charge he is to undertake and what is incumbent upon him to do Other Meetings are appointed every fourth week in which they deliberate of the affairs common to the Church Others every three months in which they consider of their provincial affairs and such as are remitted to them by appeal In these they inspect into and Recognize all Books that are Printed after they have been perus'd and approv'd by the Censors appointed for that purpose The Acts of these assemblies are put into Registers of which some are very curiously and Elegantly done They have Anniversary Synods in every considerable Kingdom to whom belongs the care and administration of all the affairs of that Kingdom In England they have a fix'd Anniversary Synod on the 3d. day of Pentecost according to the English calculation which they pitch'd upon not out of any superstition for they are as averse and estranged from Religious observation of days as any people in the World but that the time might be determin'd and every one have sufficient information of the same This Synod continues sitting for three or four days only unless some extraordinary business be tabled before them which requires much debate and is hard to be decided as it happen'd in the year ninety four in the case of Keith when it fate whole twelve days together Delegates also come to this Synod from the Churches in all other Countries or places where the Quakers obtain any footing but these must be such as are in the Ministry At their first Meeting together liberty is given for all manner of people to come in and be present which time is spent in Preaching Praying and Thanksgiving After which the Delegates retire all into one room They have no president to their Meeting which place they say is supplied by the Holy Ghost but they have a Clerk who marks down every thing that is mov'd before the Assembly It would be tedious and needless here to insert any further account of their Councils for there be stories enough flying about of them only I shall here remark what are the subjects mostly treated of by them when thus solemnly conveen'd They take into consideration all that may pertain to the general good of all the Churches They lay before the whole assembly the State of every particular Church especially if there be any thing memorable or worthy their consideration They make a Catalogue of the sufferers for Religion describing what their sufferings were or for what causes they were inflicted They examine all singular or rare events and accidents They decide all Controversies and Differences They enquire into the Lives and Conversations of their Ministers and check those who perform their tasks negligently or remissly or who through officiousness and impertinency affect to be Ministers of the word forsaking the offices that become them better and are more indispensably requir'd at their hands than this which they usurp to themselves without invitation or call running up and down as invested with this pretended function and turning it to their private lucre and gain They admonish and exhort one another to be careful and diligent in the tasks alloted them and to conform themselves to the dignity and gravity of their respective offices They settle a standard for these things which relate to Domestick cares of Christians in their Families especially to the education of Children endeavouring and exhorting by all means to be aware of these two destructive Evils which are more Consequential than all others viz. Indulging their Children too great liberty and decking and adorning their bodies too gaudily lest by so doing they occasion sin and contract infamy to themselves They take care also for the redemption of Captives and relief of the poor such of them as are known to be well and virtuously dispos'd and consult of many other things for giving mutual assistance to one another When the Synod is dismiss'd all their Acts and Decisions are enregistred by the publick Authority of the Synod which are afterwards copy'd from the Records and Printed in order to be sent to all the Synods of their Associates throughout the World or to any particular Country Associated with them of which Prints I have several Examples by me As not a few before in England so the Quakers did always invey against the Liturgy which was laid aside in Cromwell's a directory being substituted in its place and again restor'd in K. Charles's Reign as stuffed with the fopperies of Popish Darkness superstitious and ill placed Lessons and Prayers Ornaments Dresses bodily Actions and Gestures and many rites of observing holy days These the Quakers did vigorously oppose preferring the simple Exercises in their Meetings When they meet after a long silence and quiet Recollecting of their thoughts they make it their whole care and business earnestly to wait for the