A Brief Account of the Rise and Progress of the People Called Quakers | Page 2

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 provided 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 deliver
man from his power: and which, in a signal manner, by the

dispensation of the Son of God in the flesh, in the fulness of time was
personally and fully accomplished by him, and in him, as man's
Saviour and Redeemer.
But his power was not limited, in the manifestation of it to that time;
for both before and since his blessed manifestation in the flesh, he has
been the light and life, the rock and strength of all that ever feared God;
was present with them in their temptations, followed them in their
travels and afflictions, and supported and carried them through and
over the difficulties that have attended them in their earthly pilgrimage.
By this, Abel's heart excelled Cain's, and Seth obtained the
pre-eminence, and Enoch walked with God. It was this that strove with
the old world, and which they rebelled against, and which sanctified
and instructed Noah to salvation.
But the outward dispensation that followed the benighted state of man,
after his fall, especially among the patriarchs, was generally that of
angels; as the scriptures of the Old Testament do in many places
express, as to Abraham, Jacob, &c. The next was that of the law by
Moses, which was also delivered by angels, as the apostle tells us. This
dispensation was much outward, and suited to a low and servile state;
called therefore, by the apostle Paul, that of a schoolmaster, which was
to point out and prepare that people to look and long for the Messiah,
who would deliver them from the servitude of a ceremonious and
imperfect dispensation, by knowing the realities of those mysterious
representations in themselves. In this time the law was written on stone,
the temple built with hands, attended with an outward priesthood, and
external rites and ceremonies, that were shadows of the good things
that were to come, and were only to serve till the seed came, or the
more excellent and general manifestation of Christ, to whom was the
promise, and to all men only in him, in whom it was yea and amen,
even life from death, immortality and eternal life.
This the prophets foresaw, and comforted the believing Jews in the
certainty of it; which was the top of the Mosaical dispensation, which
ended in John's ministry, the forerunner of the Messiah, as John's was
finished in him, the fulness of all. And then God, that at sundry times,

and in divers manners, had spoken to the fathers by his servants the
prophets, spoke to men by his Son Christ Jesus, who is heir of all things,
being the gospel-day, which is the dispensation of sonship: bringing in
thereby a nearer testament, and a better hope; even the beginning of the
glory of the latter days, and of the restitution of all things; yea, the
restoration of the kingdom unto Israel.
Now the spirit, that was more sparingly communicated in former
dispensations, began to be poured forth upon all flesh, according to the
prophet Joel; and the light that shined in darkness, or but dimly before,
the most gracious God caused to shine out of darkness, and the day-star
began to rise in