A Brief Account of the Rise and Progress of the People Called Quakers

A Brief Account of the Rise and Progress of?by William Penn

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the People Called Quakers, by William Penn
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Title: A Brief Account of the Rise and Progress of the People Called Quakers
Author: William Penn

Release Date: September 25, 2006 [eBook #19377]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE PEOPLE CALLED QUAKERS***

Transcribed from the 1834 Harrison and Crosfield edition by David Price, email [email protected]

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.
WITH A SUMMARY RELATION OF THE FORMER DISPENSATIONS OF GOD IN THE WORLD; BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION.
BY WILLIAM PENN.
AS UNKNOWN, AND YET WELL KNOWN. 2 COR. VI. 9.
TWELFTH EDITION.
MANCHESTER:
Printed by Harrison and Crosfield, Market Street.
SOLD BY
HARVEY & DARTON, GRACECHURCH STREET, LONDON.
1834.

AN EPISTLE TO THE READER.
Reader, this following account of the people called Quakers, &c. was written 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 own 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, George 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 George Fox'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 republished 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 easy rate, to be informed 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 grounds 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 and 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.
WILLIAM PENN.

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 restoration 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 work said Amen to his law. Not a jar 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,