A Brief Account of the Rise and Progress of the People Called Quakers | Page 5

Lord's day,
and catechising of children and servants, and repeating at home in their
families what they had heard in public. But even as these grew into
power, they were not only for whipping some out, but others into the
temple: and they appeared rigid in their spirits, rather than severe in
their lives, and more for a party than for piety: which brought forth
another people, that were yet more retired and select.
They would not communicate at large, or in common with others; but
formed churches among themselves of such as could give some account
of their conversion, at least of very promising experiences of the work
of God's grace upon their hearts, and under mutual agreements and
covenants of fellowship, they kept together. These people were
somewhat of a softer temper, and seemed to recommend religion by the
charms of its love, mercy, and goodness, rather than by the terrors of its
judgments and punishments; by which the former party would have
awed people into religion.
They also allowed greater liberty to prophesy than those before them;
for they admitted any member to speak or pray, as well as their pastor,
whom they always chose, and not the civil magistrate. If such found
anything pressing upon them to either duty, even without the
distinction of clergy or laity, persons of any trade had their liberty, be it
never so low and mechanical. But alas! even these people suffered
great loss: for tasting of worldly empire, and the favour of princes, and
the gain that ensued, they degenerated but too much. For though they
had cried down national churches and ministry, and maintenance too,
some of them, when it was their own turn to be tried, fell under the
weight of worldly honour and advantage, got into profitable parsonages
too much, and outlived and contradicted their own principles; and,
which was yet worse, turned, some of them, absolute persecutors of
other men for God's sake, that but so lately came themselves out of the
furnace; which drove many a step further, and that was into the water:
another baptism, as believing they were not scripturally baptized: and
hoping to find that presence and power of God, in submitting to this
watery ordinance, which they desired and wanted.

These people also made profession of neglecting, if not renouncing and
censuring not only the necessity, but use, of all human learning, as to
the ministry; and all other qualifications to it, besides the helps and
gifts of the spirit of God, and those natural and common to men. And
for a time they seemed, like John of old, a burning and a shining light
to other societies.
They were very diligent, plain, and serious; strong in scripture, and
bold in profession; bearing much reproach and contradiction. But that
which others fell by, proved their snare. For worldly power spoiled
them too; who had enough of it to try them what they would do if they
had more: and they rested also too much upon their watery dispensation,
instead of passing on more fully to that of the fire and Holy Ghost,
which was his baptism, who came with a fan in his hand, that he might
thoroughly, and not in part only, purge his floor, and take away the
dross and the tin of his people, and make a man finer than gold. Withal,
they grew high, rough, and self-righteous; opposing further attainment;
too much forgetting the day of their infancy and littleness, which gave
them something of a real beauty; insomuch that many left them, and all
visible churches and societies, and wandered up and down as sheep
without a shepherd, and as doves without their mates; seeking their
beloved, but could not find him, as their souls desired to know him,
whom their souls loved above their chiefest joy.
These people were called Seekers by some, and the Family of Love by
others; because, as they came to the knowledge of one another, they
sometimes met together, not formally to pray or preach at appointed
times or places, in their own wills, as in times past they were
accustomed to do, but waited together in silence; and as anything rose
in any one of their minds, that they thought savoured of a divine spring,
they sometimes spoke. But so it was, that some of them not keeping in
humility, and in the fear of God, after the abundance of revelation, were
exalted above measure; and for want of staying their minds in an
humble dependance upon him that opened their understandings, to see
great things in his law, they ran out in their own imaginations, and
mixing them with those divine openings, brought forth a monstrous
birth, to the scandal of those that feared God, and waited daily in