A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF THE Rise and Progress Of the People called QUAKERS IN Which their Fundamental Principle Doctrines Worship Ministry and Discipline are Plainly Declared to prevent the Mistakes and Perversions that Ignorance and Prejudice may make to abuse the Credulous With a Summary Relation of the former Dispensations of God in the World by way of Introduction As unknown and yet well known 2 Cor. 6.9 By W. Penn. London Printed and Sold by T. Sowle near the Meeting-House in White-Hart-Court in Grace-Church-Street and at the Crooked-Billet in Holy-well-lane near Shore-ditch 1694. AN EPISTLE TO THE READER READER this Following Account of the People called Quakers c. was writ in the Fear and Love of God First as a standing Testimony to that ever Blessed Truth in the inward Parts with which God in my Youthful time visited my Soul and for the Sense and Love of which I was made willing in no ordinary Way to relinquish the Honours and Interests of the World Secondly as a Testimony for that Despised People that God has in his Great mercy gathered and united by his one blessed Spirit in the Holy Profession of it whose Fellowship I value above all Worldly Greatness Thirdly in Love and Honour to the Memory of that Worthy Servant of God G. Fox the First Instrument thereof and therefore styled by me the Great and Blessed Apostle of our Day As this gave Birth to what is here presented to thy view in the first Edition of it by way of Preface to G. F's excellent Journal so the Consideration of the present usefulness of the following Account of the People called Quakers by reason of the unjust Reflections of some Adversaries that once walked under the Profession of Friends and the Exhortations that conclude it prevailed with me to consent that it should be republisht in a smaller Volume knowing also full well that Great Books especially in these days grow Burthensome both to the Pockets and Minds of too many and that there are not a few that desire so it be at an easie rate to be inform'd about this People that have been so much every where spoken against But blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ it is upon no worse Ground than it was said of old time of the Primitive Christians as I hope will appear to every Sober and Considerate Reader Our Business after all the ill usage we have met with being the Realities of Religion an effectual change before our last great change That all may come to an Inward Sensible and Experimental knowledge of God through the Convictions and Operations of the Light and Spirit of Christ in themselves the sufficient and blessed means given to all that thereby all may come savingly to know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent to Enlighten and Redeem the World Which knowledge is indeed Eternal Life And that thou Reader mayst obtain it is the earnest desire of him that is ever Thine in so good a Work W.P. THE CONTENTS Chap. I. Containing a brief Account of divers Dispensations of God in the World to the time he was pleased to raise this despised People called Quakers Chap. II. Of the Rise of this People their Fundamental Principle and Doctrines and Practice in twelve Points resulting from it their Progress and Sufferings An Expostulation with England thereupon Chap. III. Of the Qualifications of their Ministry Eleven Marks that it is Christian Chap. IV. Of the Discipline and Practice of this People as a Religious Society The Power Church they own and exercise and that which they reject and Condemn With the Method of their Proceedings against Erring and Disordering Persons Chap. V. Of the First Instrument or Person by whom God was pleased to gather this People into the way they Profess His Name G. Fox his many excellent Qualifications showing a Divine and not a Human Power to have been their Original in him His Troubles and Sufferings both from without and within His End and Triumph at it Chap. VI. Containing Five several Exhortations First General reminding this People of their Primitive Integrity and Simplicity Secondly in Particular to the Ministry Thirdly to the Young convinced Fourthly to the Children of Friends Fifthly to those that are yet Strangers to this People and Way to whom this Book and that it was Preface to in its former Edition may come All the several Exhortations accommodated to their several States and Conditions that all may answer the end of God's love to them viz. God's Glory and their own Salvation A BRIEF ACCOUNT c. CHAP I. Containing a brief Account of divers Dispensations of God in the World to the time he was pleased to raise this Despised People called Quakers DIVERS have been the Dispensations of God since the Creation of the World unto the Sons of Men But the Great End of all of them has been the Renown of his own Excellent Name in the Creation and Restauration of Man Man the Emblem of himself as a God on Earth and the Glory of all his Works The World began with Innocency All was then good that the good God had made And as he blessed the Works of his Hands so their Natures and Harmony magnified Him their Creator Then the Morning Stars Sang together for Joy and all parts of his Works said Amen to his Law Not a Jarr in the whole Frame but Man in Paradise the Beasts in the Field the Fowl in the Air the Fish in the Sea the Lights in the Heavens the Fruits of the Earth yea the Air the Earth the Water and Fire Worshipped praised and exalted his Power Wisdom and Goodness O Holy Sabbath O Holy Day to the Lord But this Happy State lasted not long For Man the Crown and Glory of the Whole being tempted to aspire above his place unhappily yielded against Command and Duty as well as Interest and Felicity and so fell below it lost the Divine Image the Wisdom Power and Purity he was made in By which being no longer fit for Paradise he was expelled that Garden of God his proper Dwelling and Residence and was driven out as a poor Vagabond from the presence of the Lord to wander in the Earth the Habitation of Beasts Yet God that made him had pity on him for He seeing Man was deceived and that it was not of Malice or an Original Presumption in him but through the Subtilty of the Serpent who had first fallen from his own State and by the Mediation of the Woman Man 's own Nature and Companion whom the Serpent had first deluded in his infinite Goodness and Wisdom found out a way to Repair the Breach Recover the Loss and Restore fallen Man again by a Nobler and more Excellent Adam promised to be born of a Woman that as by means of a Woman the evil one had prevailed upon Man by a Woman also He should come into the World who would prevail against him and bruise his Head and
the great Alteration it made and their stricter Course of Life and more Godly Conversation that immediately followed upon it II. They went not forth or Preached in their own Time or Will but in the Will of God and Spoke not their own studied Matter but as they were opened and moved of his Spirit with which they were well acquainted in their own Conversion Which cannot be expresed to Carnal Men so as to give them any intelligible account for to such it is as Christ said like the blowing of the Wind which no man knows whence it cometh or whither it goeth Yet this Proof and Seal went along with their Ministry that many were turned from their Life-less Professions and the Evil of their Ways to an inward and experimental knowledge of God and an Holy Life as thousands can witness And as they Freely received what they had to say from the Lord so they Freely administer'd it to others III. The Bent and Stress of their Ministry was Conversion to God Regeneration and Holiness Not Schemes of Doctrines and Verbal Creeds or new Forms of Worship But a leaving off in Religion the Superfluous and reducing the Ceremonious and Formal part and pressing earnestly the Substantial the Necessary and Profitable part to the Soul as all upon a serious Reflection must and do accknowledge IV. They directed People to a Principle in themselves tho' not of themselves by which all that they asserted Preached and Exhorted others to might be wrought in them and known to them through Experience to be true Which is a high and distinguishing Mark of the Truth of their Ministry both that they knew what they said and were not afraid of coming to the Test For as they were bold from Certainty so they required Conformity upon no Humane Authority but upon Conviction and the Conviction of This Principle which they asserted was in them that they Preached unto and unto that they directed them that they might examine and prove the Reality of those things which they had affirmed of it as to its Manifestation and Work in Man And this is more than the many Ministries in the World pretended to They declare of Religion say many things true in words of God Christ and the Spirit of Holiness and Heaven that all Men should Repent and mend their Lives or they will go to Hell c. But which of them all pretend to speak of their own Knowledge and Experience Or ever directed Men to a Divine Principle or Agent placed of God in Man to help him and how to know it and wait to feel its Power to work that good and acceptable Will of God in them Some of them indeed have Spoke of the Spirit and the Operations of it to Sanctification and Performance of Worship to God but Where and How to find it and wait in it to perform our duty to God was yet as a Mystery to be declared by this further degree of Reformation So that this People did not only in words more than equally press Repentance Conversion and Holiness but did it knowingly and experimentally and directed those to whom they preach'd to a sufficient Principle and told them where it was and by what Tokens they might know it and which way they might experience the Power and Efficacy of it to their Soul's Happiness Which is more than Theory and Speculation upon which most other Ministries depend For here is certainty a Bottom upon which Man may boldly appear before God in the great Day of Account V. They reached to the Inward State and Condition of People which is an Evidence of the Virtue of their Principle and of their Ministring from it and not from their own Imaginations Glosses or Comments upon Scripture For nothing reaches the Heart but what is from the Heart or pierces the Conscience but what comes from a living Conscience Insomuch as it hath often happened where People have under Secrecy revealed their State or condition to some choice Friends for Advice or Ease they have been so particularly directed in the Ministry of this People that they have challenged their Friends with discovering their Secrets and telling the Preachers their Cases to whom a word had not been spoken Yea the very Thoughts and Purposes of the hearts of many have been so plainly detected that they have like Nathanael cryed out of this inward appearance of Christ Thou art the Son of God Thou art the King of Israel And those that have embraced this Divine Principle have found this Mark of its Truth and Divinity that the Woman of Samaria did of Christ when in the Flesh to be the Messiah viz. It had told them all that ever they had done showed them their insides the most inward secrets of their Hearts and laid Judgment to the Line and Righteousness to the Plummet of which Thousands can at this day give in their Witness So that nothing has been affirmed by this People of the Power and Virtue of this Heavenly Principle that such as have turned to it have not found true and more and that one half had not been told to them of what they have seen of the Power Purity Wisdom and Goodness of God therein VI. The Accomplishments with which this Principle fitted even some of the meanest of this People for their Work and Service Furnishing some of them with an Extraordinary Understanding in Divine Things and an admirable Fluency and Taking way of Expression which gave occasion to some to wonder saying of them as of their Master Is not this such a Mechanick's Son how came he by this Learning As from thence others took occasion to suspect and insinuate they were Jesuites in Disguise who have had the Reputation of Learned Men for an Age past though there was not the least ground of Truth for any such Reflection In that their Ministers are known the places of their Abode their Kindred and Education VII That they rise Low and Despised and Hated as the Primitive Christians did and not by the help of Worldly Wisdom or Power as former Reformations in part have done But in all things it may be said this People were brought forth in the Cross in a Contradiction to the Ways Worship Fashions and Customs of this World yea against Wind and Tide that so no Flesh might Glory before God VIII They could have no design to themselves in this Work thus to expose themselves to Scorn and Abuse to spend and be spent Leaving Wife and Children House and Land and all that can be accounted dear to Men with their lives in their Hands being daily in Jeopardy to declare this Primitive Message revived in their Spirits by the good Spirit and Power of God viz. That God is Light and in him is no darkness at all and that he has sent his Son a Light into the World to enlighten all Men in order to Salvation and that they that say they have Fellowship with God and are his Children and People and yet walk
God as you should do you must come to the means he has ordained and given for that purpose Some seek it in Books some in Learned Men but what they look for is in themselves though not of themselves but they overlook it The Voice is too still the Seed too small and the Light shineth in Darkness They are abroad and so cannot divide the Spoil But the Woman that lost her Silver found it at Home after she had lighted her Candle and swept her House Do you so too and you shall find what Pilate wanted to know viz. Truth Truth in the Inward Parts so valuable in the sight of God The light of Christ within who is the Light of the World and so a Light to you that tells you the Truth of your Condition leads all that take heed unto it out of Darkness into God's marvellous Light For Light grows upon the Obedient It is sown for the Righteous and their way is a shining Light that shines forth more and more to the perfect day Wherefore O Friends Turn in Turn in I beseech you Where is the Poison There is the Antidote There you want Christ and There you must find him and blessed be God There you may find him Seek and you shall find I testifie for God But then you must seek aright with your whole Heart as Men that seek for their Lives yea for their Eternal Lives Diligently Humbly Patiently as those that can taste no Pleasure Comfort or Satisfaction in any thing else unless you find him whom your Souls want and desire to know and love above all O it is a Travail a Spiritual Travail Let the Carnal Profane World think and say as it will And through This Path you must walk to the City of God that has Eternal Foundations if ever you will come there Well! And what does this blessed Light do for you Why 1. It sets all your Sins in order before you It detects the Spirit of this World in all its Baits and Allurements and shews how Man came to fall from God and the fallen Estate he is in 2. It begets a Sense and Sorrow in such as believe in it for this fearful Lapse You will then see him Distinctly whom you have Pierced and all the Blows and Wounds you have given him by your Disobedience and how you have made him to serve with your Sins and you will Weep and Mourn for it and your Sorrow will be a Godly Sorrow 3. After this it will bring you to the Holy Watch to take Care that you do so no more and that the Enemy surprise you not again Then Thoughts as well as Words and Works will come to Judgment which is the way of Holiness in which the Redeemed of the Lord do walk Here you will come to love God above all and your Neighbours as your selves Nothing Hurts Nothing Harms Nothing makes Afraid on this Holy Mountain Now you come to be Christ's indeed for you are his in Nature and Spirit and not your own And when you are Thus Christ's then Christ is yours and not before And here Communion with the Father and with the Son you will know and the Efficacy of the Blood of Cleansing even the Blood of Jesus Christ that Immaculate Lamb which speaketh better things than the Blood of Abel and which cleanseth from all Sin the Consciences of those that through the living Faith come to be sprinkled with it from dead Works to serve the living God To Conclude Behold the Testimony and Doctrine of the People called Quakers Behold their Practice and Discipline And behold the blessed Man and Men at least many of them that were sent of God in this Excellent Work and Service All which is more particularly expressed in the Annals of that Man of God Which I do heartily recommend to my Readers most serious Perusal and beseech Almighty God that his Blessing may go along with both to the Convincement of many as yet Strangers to this Holy Dispensation and also to the Edification of the Church of God in General Who for his manifold and repeated Mercies and Blessings to his People in this day of his great Love is worthy ever to have the Glory Honour Thanksgiving and Renown and be it rendred and ascribed with Fear and Reverence through him in whom he is well pleased his Beloved Son and Lamb our Light and Life that sits with him upon the Throne World without End Amen Says One that God has long since Mercifully favoured with his Fatherly Visitation and who was not Disobedient to the Heavenly Vision and Call to whom the Way of Truth is more Lovely and Precious than ever and that knowing the Beauty and Benefit of it above all Worldly Treasure has chosen it for his Chiefest Joy and therefore recommends it to thy Love and Choice because he is with great Sincerity and Affection thy Soul's Friend William Penn. The END
in Darkness viz. in Disobedience to the Light in their Consciences and after the Vanity of this World they lie and do not the Truth But that all such as love the Light and bring their Deeds to it and walk in the Light as God is Light the blood of Jesus Christ his Son should cleanse them from all Sin Thus Jo. 1.4.19 Ch. 3.20.21 1 Jo. 1.5.6.7 IX Their known great Constancy and Patience in Suffering for their Testimony in all the Branches of it and that sometimes unto Death by Beatings Bruisings long and crowded Imprisonments and Noisom Dungeons Four of them in New England Dying by the Hands of the Executioner purely for Preaching amongst that People Besides Banishments and Excessive Plunders and Sequestrations of their Goods and Estates almost in all parts not easily to be expressed and less to have been endured but by those that have the support of a good and glorious Cause refusing Deliverance by any indirect ways or means as often as it was offered to them X. That they did not only not show any disposition to Revenge when it was at any time in their Power but forgave their cruel Enemies shewing Mercy to those that had none for them XI their Plainness with those in Authority like the Antient Prophets not fearing to tell them to their Faces of their Private and Publick Sins and their Prophecies to them of their Afflictions and Downfal when in the Top of their Glory Also of some National Judgments as of the Plague and Fire of London in express Terms And likewise particular ones to divers Persecutors which accordingly overtook them and were very remarkable in the Places where they dwelt which in time may be made publick for the Glory of God Thus Reader thou seest this People in their Rise Principles Ministry and Progress both their General and Particular Testimony By which thou maist be informed how and upon what foot they Sprang and became so considerable a People It remains next that I shew also their Care Conduct and Discipline as a Christian and Reformed Society that they might be found living up to their own Principles and Profession And this the rather because they have hardly suffered more in their Character from the Unjust Charge of Error than by the false Imputation of Disorder Which Calumny indeed has not failed to follow all the true steps that were ever made to Reformation and under which Reproach none suffered more than the Primitive Christians themselves that were the Honour of Christianity and the great Lights and Examples of their own and succeeding Ages CHAP. IV. Of the Discipline and Practice of this People as a Religious Society The Church Power they own and exercise and that which they reject and condemn With the Method of their Proceedings against Erring and Disorderly Persons THis People encreasing daily both in Town and Country an Holy Care fell upon some of the Elders among them for the Benefit and Service of the Church And the first Business in their View after the Example of the Primitive Saints was the exercise of Charity to supply the Necessities of the Poor and answer the like Occasions Wherefore Collections were early and liberally made for that and divers other Services in the Church and intrusted with Faithful Men Fearing God and of Good Report who were not weary in well-doing adding often of their own in large Proportions which they never brought to account or desired should be known much less restored to them that none might want nor any Service be retarded or disappointed They were also very careful that every one that belonged to them answered their Profession in their Behaviour among Men upon all Occasions that they lived Peaceably and were in all things good Examples They found themselves engaged to record their Sufferings and Services And in case of Marriage which they could not perform in the usual Methods of the Nation but among themselves they took care that all things were clear between the Parties and all others And it was then rare that any one entertain'd an Inclination to a Person on that account till he or she had communicated it secretly to some very Weighty and Eminent Friends among them that they might have a sense of the matter looking to the Council and Unity of their Brethren as of great Moment to them But because the Charge of the Poor the Number of Orphans Marriages Sufferings and other matters multiplied and that it was good that the Churches were in some way and Method of proceeding in such Affairs among them to the end they might the better correspond upon occasion where a Member of one Meeting might have to do with one of another It pleased the Lord in his Wisdom and Goodness to open the Understanding of the first Instrument of this Dispensation of Life about a Good and Orderly way of Proceeding Who felt an Holy Concern to visit the Churches in Person thoroughout this Nation to begin and establish it among them And by his Epistles the like was done in other Nations and Provinces abroad which he also afterwards Visited and helped in that Service as shall be observed when I come to speak of him Now the Care Conduct and Discipline I have been speaking of and which are now practiced among this People is as followeth This Godly Elder in every County where he travelled exhorted them that Some out of every Meeting of Worship should meet together once in the Month to confer about the Wants and Occasions of the Church And as the Case required so those Monthly Meetings were fewer or more in number in every respective County Four or Six Meetings of Worship usually making one Monthly Meeting of Business And accordingly the Brethren met him from place to place and began the said Meetings viz. For the Poor Orphans Orderly Walking Integrity to their Profession Births Marriages Burials Sufferings c. And that these Monthly Meetings should in each County make up one Quarterly Meeting where the most Zealous and Eminent Friends of the County should assemble to Communicate Advise and Help one another especially when any Business seemed difficult or a Monthly Meeting was tender of determining a Matter Also that these several Quarterly Meetings should digest the Reports of their Monthly Meetings and prepare one for each respective County against the Yearly Meeting in which all Quarterly Meetings resolve which is held in London Where the Churches in this Nation and Other Nations and Provinces Meet by chosen Members of their Respective Counties both mutually to communicate their Church Affairs and to advise and be advised in any depending Case to Edification Also to provide a Requisite Stock for the discharge of general Expences for general Services in the Church not needful to be here particularized At these Meetings Any of the Members of the Churches may come if they please and speak their Minds freely in the Fear of God to any matter but the Mind of each Quarterly Meeting therein represented