The Snake in the Grass - Sect. 21.

Of the visible possessions of many Quakers by the Devil.

HAVING proved Quakerism to be conjuration, or G. Fox to be a liar, (let them take their choice,) I now proceed to a better proof than from Fox, to shew, that many of them were, especially at their beginning, in an high measure possessed by the Devil, that we might know from whence they had their inspirations.

And a visible effect of this was that extraordi nary shaking and quaking, like fits of convulsion, which these Quakers at the first either acted, or, like the heathen priests of old, were possessed with, whence they had their name of Quakers.

George Fox in his Journal, p.156 to 161, strongly vindicates this their quaking as a mark of divine in spiration.

Which if it be not, then it can be nothing else but witchcraft and conjuration, as G. Fox complains that the profane did call it. If you see one, says he, ibid. p. 158, as Habakkuk, whose lips quivered, whose belly shook, &c. ye say he is bewitched; and, p. 159, some of them that scoff at this power call it the power of the Devil.

Yes, and not only they that scoffed at it, but those that adored it, and were possessed by it; and some of these have given us relations of it in print, which are indeed wonderful, and do equal, if not exceed, all the accounts in any age, even of heathen ism, concerning the strange possessions of the Devil, or what has of later years been told of witches; as their bodies being seen to lie as dead, while they have told of passing through the air, and acting their fantastical freaks, &c.

This is attributed by some to the strong impression made by the Devil upon their imaginations, whereby they really thought that they did such things as were transacted only in their brain, fully possessed and turned with the force of an enthusiastic madness.

But whatever the power of the Devil may be in such cases, or the methods by which he works upon those miserable mortals who are given up to his in spirations, (which I will not take upon me to deter mine,) there never were more visible and dreadful effects of it, no not in any of the possessed men mentioned in the gospel, than has been among the Quakers, even as declared and witnessed by them selves; and that not only as to the strange and pre ternatural distortions, quaking and shaking of their bodies, past the power of any to counterfeit, or to act it by their natural strength; but, what is much more horrible, and exceeding all other witchcrafts and pos sessions of the Devil that ever were heard of before, these possessed Quakers do impiously blaspheme, and call themselves Christ; and some of them have imitated his passion, death, and resurrection madly in themselves.

John Gilpin of Kendal in Westmoreland has given us a strange and wonderful account of his own possession by the Devil while he was a Quaker, in a book which he entitled, The Quakers Shaken, &c. printed 1653, and attested by the then mayor of Kendal, the minister of Kendal, and several other persons whose names are thereunto annexed. The story is prodigious, and such astonishing quaking and distortion of his limbs, as could not be counter feited, which the Devil told him was the effects of his inspiration by the Spirit of God. He tells that he was converted to Quakerism by the powerful preaching of Christopher Atkinson, a then renown ed Quaker apostle, who stumbled upon Thom. Sy monds's maid in Norwich gaol, as before is told, sect. VI. n. 5.

I find another edition of John Gilpin's book, anno 1655, which is mentioned by Christopher Wade, in a book of his called, Quakery Slain, &c. printed 1657, where, p. 7, he quotes out of Gilpin's book another monstrous possession of one James Milner, who said that he was Christ, and that he must suffer as Christ did, and, in a juggling manner with a knife and a bason, pretended that his blood was shed, and that he gave up the ghost, as Christ did. He prophesied twelve strange prophecies, and lived to see them all prove false.

George Fox answers Gilpin in a pleasant sort of manner. He owns that the Lord did open true prophecies and mighty things to him (James Milner). But then, as an excusefor his false prophecies and his blasphemies in calling himself Christ, &c. he makes this comical apology: In some things his mind runned out, and that he condemns; and yet these wicked men will go tell the nation of it. This was a very sad case, that he could not call himself Christ, and give forth false prophecies, but these wicked men must tell the nation of it—It was nothing but his mind runned out—He only blasphemed, and sought to delude the nation, and yet they must not be told of it! for, notwithstand ing of all this, he is a prophet good enough for Fox. Fox thinks that the Lord did open true prophecies and mighty things to him. True and false pro phet in one! or else there never was one among the Quakers.

I will trouble the reader but with one instance more. John Toldervy has printed a very punctual narrative of his own conversion to Quakerism, and of the most astonishing possession of the Devil, in which he was held after his said conversion, even to the apparitions of evil spirits, dancing and singing about him, and directing him what he should do, and encouraging him in the principles of Quakerism, chiefly to adhere strongly to his own light within, which he was to make a superior guide to scripture, as being the same Spirit which gave forth the scriptures; and consequently that he himself was as infallible as any of the prophets or apostles, having the same Spirit which they had.

And thus being brought to believe every strong imagination which came into his head to be the im mediate dictate of the Holy Ghost; and these un clean spirits having the power to make impressions upon his imagination, he became entirely subject to their will, and was carried into strange excesses, even to attempt miracles, that as fire proceeded from the Lord upon the altar in the sight of Moses, Aaron, and the children of Israel, so from the Lord in me [he says, so he called his light within, thinking it to be very God and Christ, the true and real Christ, of whom that man Christ Jesus was but a type or figure; which is the Quaker doc trine, as before is shewn] should there proceed that virtue which should infuse a heat into these coals and sticks, (which he had gathered together for that purpose,) by which a fire should be kin dled; now being confident (he goes on) I should effect the work; yea, had I been master of the whole world, I should have ventured all, with a value of no worth, upon the performance of this deed; having laid all things in their order, as di rected by that spirit which moved me to the work, I was moved to blow with my mouth, p. 31. And blow I did, says he, expecting still that from my life, the Lord, there should heat proceed with my breath to the lighting of the fire.

But, in the end, not being able to effect the thing, I was extremely troubled, that I, the Christ of God, should fail in the performance of the first miracle, since so many miracles were wrought by him that was a figure of me. It is dreadful to repeat such horrid blasphemy. After this, he was tempted to mimic over in himself our Saviour's agony, crucifixion, his death, burial, and resurrec tion, p. 37, thrusting a needle through his thumbs, for the piercing of Christ's body; falling down, and covering himself with shavings and white paper for a winding sheet, &c. There are multitudes of prodi gious instances in the said narrative of the incre dible power of enthusiastic delusion, to which I refer the reader. He pretended to be directed by flies in most of his ecstasies. This minded me of the etymo logy of Beelzebub, which signifies the god of flies.

But to go on: James Naylor wrote an answer to Toldervy, called, Foot yet in the Snare, &c. printed in the same year 1656. To which Toldervy replied the same year, and called his replication, The Snare Broken, &c. And in the same year again, in two sheets, called, The Naked Truth, &c. he made a sort of a half vindication and half recantation, not of the matters of fact of his foresaid delusions, (for these were undeniable,) but to free the Quakers from the imputation and scandal of them, and to clear him self to have been and still to continue a true Quaker, which makes the cause much worse on their side.

James Naylor, in his answer to Toldervy, makes him to be both a true prophet and a false; (like Fox's Apology before told for Milner:) and where Tol dervy tells of his being moved to say thee and thou, not to pull off his hatY; To pull off the points at his knees, and his buttons that were un “necessary, and not to direct his mind in drinking to any, and the like essential points; these things, Naylor says, were dictated to Toldervy by the Spirit of God: but as to his being led with flies, to crucify himself, and to burn his legs, and to prick needles in his thumbs, and the like; these, Nay lor says, were the Devil's work: and yet they were the same spirits which bid Toldervy do both the one and the other; and so both good and evil spirits by Naylor's account.

But after Naylor had thus endeavoured to vindi cate the Quaker spirit, and to shew that Toldervy had it not like him (Naylor) in perfection, even that same year, viz. Octob. 24, 1656, all the good or evil spirits entered into Naylor himself, and he set up to be Christ, and was hosanna'd into Bristol, Quakers leading his horse, strowing branches and their clothes in the way, and singing hosanna to him, and Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Israel. These Quakers said upon their examinations, that he, James Naylor, was the Christ, that his name was changed from James to Jesus *; that he was the only begotten Son of God, the only Saviour, and that they knew no other Saviour but him.

And James Naylor, upon his examination, would not disown any thing of this, but justified and owned it in terms equivalent, p. 14.

But this was threatening to the great Fox, who pretended to be the Christ himself.

Naylor was but Fox's disciple; and now was setting up to be above him, to be his lord and master. And being thrown into gaol for that his blas phemous cavalcade, G. Fox and his myrmidons watched their time, run down Naylor, who was at last brought upon his knees before G. Fox, confess ing his error, &c.

Thus he, who but a day or two before thought to justify the Quakers from the false spirit of John Toldervy and his Quakers, was condemned himself for a false spirit by other Quakers.

That nothing might be wanting for the full con viction of that cursed spirit which possessed them both'; and G. Fox as much as either of them, and his followers, in their several measures; many more instances might be added to Gilpin, Milner, Tol dervy, and Naylor, of Quakers in an high degree possessed with the Devil. There have not been among so many of all mankind such a number, as of these Quakers, that have run quite mad; of whom catalogues might be produced: for their principle is little short of madness. Reading the story of Tol dervy one night to as sober a Quaker as, I believe, is of the number; he owned that he had many times sat alone, expecting of revelations: so very susceptible do the Quaker principles make men of the wild impressions of enthusiasm. None of them have yet been able to give us any mark whereby to distinguish betwixt their explanation of the light within, and the mere strength of imagination, which in its excess is madness. And they having en couraged this beyond all other sorts of enthusiasts, consequently more of them have been carried to the height of it.

And thereby their reason (the seat of religion) being thoroughly disturbed, they have been laid open and fenceless to the downright possessions of Satan; not only in the opinion of those that scoff at it, as G. Fox says in his Journal above quoted, but forced to be confessed by themselves, by the best of them.

That part of Fox's Journal wherein he thus com plains of their monstrous quaking, &c. to be con strued as witchcraft, and the power of the Devil, is said to be wrote in the year 1655, in the very height of their inspiration; which began in the year 1650, and went on trembling and quaking in a most pro digious manner till the restoration, anno 1660, since which time (the nation having recovered some sense of sobriety) their strange and enthusiastic fits of quaking have been for the most part left off by them, or their numen which inspired them has forsaken them; and there is now seldom any such thing to be seen among them. But they too pretend to be sober What! are they ashamed of their former quaking? or have they not now so great a degree of inspiration as they had before?

Patrick Levingston, one of their preachers, makes a very pleasant excuse for this in his Plain and Downright Dealing with them that were with us, and are gone out from us, p. 10. When physic is given to the body, says hea, is it not to work terribly, that it may purge the body? And when all is purged out, the physic leaves working, and the body is still. Were not all the breakings and meltings, and terrible shakings and quakings of friends' bodies to purge out sin, and to bring to stillness, coolness, and calmness of mind? Now when terrible shakings, breakings, &c. were, they were but for a little time, and so were quickly gone again, and the voice of the Lord was not distinctly discerned there; but these were, that sin might be purged out, and then the cause of ter rible potions was taken away, and the stillness being come, that's a durable thing, a solid condi tion: and here the mind is brought into a capa city to discern the voice of the Lord; whereas in the time of the violent motions, the mind was so hurried and tossed with the rage of the enemy, so that there was not a clear discerning what might be done, or left undone in many things.

And this he gives as an answer to those modern Quakers who were offended that this spirit of quak ing had ceased among them, and objected, that be cause the mighty motions of the bodies of friends are ceased, and friends are still cool and quiet, therefore that the same power is not in meetings 66 and they cry, Where is the power that was at first?

Now here is a comparison made betwixt the state of the Quakers from 1650 to 1660, and from thence to this time.

The first state was their time of physic, they were those ten long years in purging out their sin. And their terrible potions of the Spirit wrought vio lent convulsions in their bodies of tremblings and quakings, to the admiration of all beholders.

But there was worse than that: for as Leving ston here informs us, during these ecstatic years they were not in a solid condition, and the voice of the Lord was not distinctly discerned among them, the mind was so hurried and tossed, so that there was not a clear discerning what might be done or left undone in many things. This is a very sad reckoning for what now will become of the first Quaker infallibility set up in these same ten quaking, purging years, to discern between truth and error, between every false and right way, and which perfectly discovered to them the true state of all things? And that not only to G. Fox, or some of the chief of them, but to every one of them in particular, as before.

It seems that these hurryings and tossings for the first ten years did not come from the Holy Spirit of God, because Levingston says, that they hindered the discerning the voice of the Lord; whereas the ecstasies of the holy prophets did most perfectly discover to them the voice of the Lord, and what was to be done, or left undone.

But Levingston says plainly, that they (the Quakers) were hurried and tossed thus by the rage of the enemy; that is, of the Devil; and that it was this which hindered them from the clear discerning of what might be done or left un done in many things: for surely no inspiration from God could hinder this ' And I hope no Quaker now will say, that the extraordinary commotions of the holy prophets of old were caused by the rage of the enemy; when the scriptures tell us plainly that they were caused by the extraordinary impulse of the Spirit of God; those caused by the rage of the enemy the Quakers have vindicated to themselves. And as a further demonstration of it, it is apparent, that since their extraordinary quaking fits have ceased, they have many of them returned to a more sober mind. And the wisest of them now seek to cover and palliate, all that they can, the madness and extravagancies of their first quaking state.

But they will not yet condemn it; nay, sometimes (for they are all made up of contradictions) they will support it, and plead for it; and that not only as an extraordinary inspiration for some time, but as an holy duty. And if it be such, it must bind for ever.

Sam. Fisher, in his Rusticus ad Academicos, exercit. 2. p. 18, says, As for that holy duty itself of quaking, which as blind a guide and brute a beast as thou (thus he treats Dr. Owen in the Quaker courtly dialect) art in speaking evil of, &c.

Now if it be an holy duty, then are the present Quakers fallen from their duty, and from their holiness.

If it is an effect of the extraordinary inspiration of God, then have not the present Quakers such a degree of the Spirit as the first Quakers had, which I suppose they will not be willing to own. For then there will be degrees in their infallibility; and if it be once coming down stairs -

But if (as in truth it is) that their quaking and shaking proceeded from a strong possession of the spirit of enthusiasm, it will follow that all was a de lusion then, and must be so still, while our modern Quakers take upon them to justify those who went before them, and their doctrines. And, by G. Fox's sentence above told, all was and is conjuration, and their quaking was the possession of the Devil, and the Quakers now are inspired by him, and are false prophets, diviners, and conjurers. And this, as G. Fox teaches, must certainly be so, if they have spoken any thing, not only against the word of God, but if all that they have said was not spoken from the mouth of the Lord; such as the making it hea thenism and idolatry to have the image or likeness of any creature in heaven or in earth painted upon a sign, if but only a bed-staff, fire-shovel, saw, fork, or the like, of man's making; and such as where he preaches against skimming-dish hats, unnecessary buttons on coats or cloaks, slit peaks behind on the skirts of women's waistcoats, short black aprons, needless flying scarfs, vizard masks, bare necks, &c. All which he dictates as from immediate inspiration.

And, as before shewn from Mr. Penn, no liberty of conscience must be allowed in any of these things, and following the light within is but a loose plea, if offered against any of these material points! Though against the church, or any of her constitutions, it is a plea undeniable and infallible; and to reject it is to reject God himself, and to resist the light, which is Christ, and therefore above all human ordinances, laws, or constitutions whatsoever! But if G. Fox command to thee and thou not to pull off hats, or have slit peaks behind in women's waistcoats, &c. this is the immediate command of God, and a divine, not an human constitution; and to have the image of any creature upon a sign is no less than heathen ism and idolatry, if he give the word! But he has given the word, as above quoted; and yet the pre sent Quakers do not follow it, but have birds, beasts, &c. upon their signs. What then? either they are all heathens and idolaters, or else George Fox was a most profane and deluded wretch to say so. And yet they pretend to be his followers; and, by George Fox's own sentence, he himself was a conjurer, that is, possessed with the Devil, if what he so said was not from the mouth of the Lord. But they are doubly possessed who know all this, and yet will still maintain and follow him, though they do not follow him!

It were endless to collect all the particular in stances of the strange possessions of the Quakers when they first appeared in the world, and for se veral years after, of which we find frequent mention in the books wrote in those times, and the descriptions of the monstrous distortions of their whole bodies, very dreadful to the beholders; and such loud and hideous yelling at some times, as frighted dogs, swine, and cattle at a great distance, and set them a running, howling, lowing, braying, &c. But I will set down one remarkable instance, which I find in a book wrote by Mr. Giles Firmin, a then minister in Essex, an. 1656, entitled, Stablishing against Shaking, &c. where, after other instances, he annexes at the end of the book the following account.

A minister in Essex gave this narration to a friend of mine, written with his own hand, and his name to it; the copy is true that I here offer to the reader.

The 8th month, 19th day, 1654.

At the earnest desire of some friends, I went with John Ward and Anthony Hunter to a meeting of the deluded souls called Quakers, at John Hunter's of Benfield-side in the county of Dur ham, where I found about twenty persons sitting all silent; after we had sat a while (all being mute) the Lord moved me to arise, and call upon his name by prayer. I was no sooner up, but my legs trembled greatly, so that it was some difficulty to stand; but after I had prayed a short space, the trembling ceased. While I prayed to God as a creator, there was but little disturbance; but when I cried in the name of Jesus Christ, my Mediator, God in my nature, now in the highest glory appearing and interceding for his saints, then the Devil roared in the deceived souls in most strange and dreadful manner, some howling, some shrieking, yelling, roaring, and some had a strange confused kind of humming, singing noise. Such a representation of hell I never heard of, no thing but horror and confusion.

After I had done praying, (not opening my eyes before,) I was amazed to see about the one half of these miserable creatures so terribly shaken with such violent various motions, that I wondered how it was possible some of them could live.

In the midst of this confusion, one of them asked, if I were come to torment them? to whom I ap plied this word, Matth. viii. 29.

And while I spake something of faith, they declared that they were come to the faith of Devils, James ii. 19, but said, we were not attained to such a faith.

After two hours, as we were departing out of the house, one of them cursed me with these words, All the plagues of God be upon thee. Whereupon I returned, and prayed for such of them as had not committed the unpardonable Sin.

Thus far this minister: then Mr. Firmin adds; Lately in a town near me, when the Quakers were met together, there appeared one amongst them in such a shape as caused them to break up their meeting, with no small trouble to divers of them. I cannot learn the perfect manner, for the Quakers will not reveal it; only so much some of them have affirmed, and I will not publish more than I am certain of: I wish it may turn to their good. Thus Mr. Firmin.

I mention this story the rather, because Edward Burroughs, in his Works, p. 167, gives this answer; As to the babbling story, says he, at the end of thy book, thou sayest a minister in Essex gave thee the narrative, but conceals his name yet is Thomas Tillam known; his testimony is like thine, and a minister, like thee, who was and is known in all parts about Hexham to be a deceitful fellow, who preached for hire an anabaptist, contrary to thee yet if he give a babbling story against us, thou believes him: but his wickedness is well noted, who for his filthiness was cast out and denied of the assembly to which he was a pastor, and stands as one cast off by them Thy last story is an abominable lie. This •6 last story of G. Firmin he denies, but brings no proof, which had been easy to have done at that time, it being said to be done at a public meeting. But as to the other story of Thomas Tillam, (as he calls him,) he does not so much as deny it; only (according to the Quaker way) he falls upon him with railing, and telling all the ill he can of him, which, without other evidence, none that know the Quaker spirit will believe upon Burroughs's testi mony. But if it were all true, what is that to his being an evidence of what he saw and heard, and before many other witnesses, who might easily have disproved him, he naming both time and place so particularly? So that this seems a plain confession of Burroughs to the matter of fact; he only saying that Tillam was an anabaptist, and therefore not to be believed by Firmin, who was of another persua sion; that he was a loose man, &c. which makes nothing to the business.

Since the first edition of this book, there has been published an astonishing account of some Quaker witches who prosecuted one Henry Winder and his wife for their lives, accusing them of murder from the mouth of the Lord, and in his name, and as received by express revelation from him; and in the same blasphemous assurance promised that at the assizes a spirit should arise up at the left hand of the judge to prove it. One of them being ex amined how and in what manner this revelation came to her, said, she could not well tell, but she was sure it began in her feet. They pretended by revelation to go to the place where the murdered person was buried, and to find the body, and many other such like circumstances; insomuch that this was brought to a trial at the assizes in Carlisle, August 1674, where their horrible imposture was fully detected, and Winder and his wife acquitted, who after brought actions of defamation against these witches, and put them in prison for the da mages awarded, chiefly to bring them by this means to a confession of their wickedness and delusion; which they would not own, no not in a tittle, though so many ways detected; and would give no other answer to any who upbraided them with it but Fear God. When they understood that Winder had brought a writ of defamation against them, they again set on to a new prosecution of him and his wife for the same murder, and pretended that the witnesses of the murder were revealed to them by the Lord, and named certain persons, and told Mr. Huddleston, a justice of peace, to whom they applied, that it was revealed to them that he should have Winder's land: they went likewise to Bernard Kirkbride, then sheriff of the county, and told him, by the like revelation, that he should have Winder's goods; by this temptation to engage them to fur ther this new prosecution. They likewise, to en gage Winder's own wife to join against him, came and told her, that they had seen, by the revelation of Jesus Christ, that her husband would certainly destroy her, and that he would be hanged for it, and that her children should be left desolate, and none to have compassion on them. But Mr. Huddleston having examined the witnesses (whom these witches had named) each apart from the other, and likewise searched the several places (for their revelations varied, and being disappointed in one place named another) where they said the murdered body was to be found, and the whole appearing to be a malicious and diabolical delusion, their further malice and prosecution was disappointed. Then Winder's actions of defamation took place, and they with their husbands were imprisoned for payment of the damages awarded: but he sought no more than hereby to bring them to repentance, and a con fession of their crime, upon which he promised to release them. But they stuck to their innocency; and one of the witches, with her husband, made their escape: another couple lay in prison almost five years before they could be brought (as Mr. Winder words it) to thaw a little: and in witness of their suffering for a righteous cause, having twins born in the prison, a son and a daughter, they named one innocent prisoner, and t'other harmless sufferer. The third couple had the damages wherein they were amerced paid by friends, and so released without confessing or acknowledging any offence in them. The whole relation is wonderful, and vouched past contradiction: it bears this title; The Spirit of Quakerism, and the Danger of their Divine Revela tion laid open, in a faithful Narrative of their ma licious Prosecution of Henry Winder and his Wife as Murderers, at the public Assize at Carlisle; print ed for John Hains, at the Harrow in Little Britain, 1696.

Note here, that, as H. Winder in his said Narra tive tells us, Postscript, p. 19, he had been a Quaker, and eminent among them, being receiver of all their collections in the county where he lived. But being afterwards convinced of the delusions in which he had been led, he left them, and returned to that church from whence he came out; and then disco vered those motives and arguments which had se duced him to go among the Quakers, wherein their foul errors and heresies did fully appear, particularly their leading men from the outward Christ, from the scriptures and all outward ordinances, to mind only their own light within, which laid them open, as without a compass, to steer after all their own wild, raving imaginations, and mistake them for the infallible light within, and downright inspi ration divine. This enraged them to the degree before related, of seeking his life; and no bonds of relation could tie them; for two of the abovesaid witches were sisters to H. Winder's wife, whose life they sought as well as his. And the Quakers in the country where this prosecution was, did own and abet these witches all the while against Winder and his wife. Two of the witches, (as Winder tells, p. 1,) Margaret Bradly and Mary Langhorn, turned Quakers almost with the first in the north, and be came very famous among them; moreover turned preachers, and went up and down the country to make proselytes, and became very troublesome both to magistrates and ministers with messages they pretended they had from the Lord unto them: and their Quaker husbands not only countenanced them in this their prosecution of Winder, but suffered with them for it, rather than they would own them to have been in the wrong in it.

One Benjamin Coal, a writer of renown among the Quakers, has endeavoured an answer to this Narrative of Winder's, in a postscript to a book of his, entitled, The Quakers cleared from being Apo states, &c. printed 1696, where, answering the ob jection why the Quakers did not disown these Quaker witches, and their spirit too, he replies, p. 87, What then 2 Do it therefore follow that they must own them and it? an envious, as well as foolish consequence, says he. But, by Benja min's leave, such consequence is neither envious nor foolish; for (as is before shewn) by their stated discipline, and decree of their yearly meet ing, anno 1675, it is ordered, That the church's testimony and judgment against scandalous walk ers, and the repentance and condemnation of the parties restored, should be recorded in a distinct book, to be produced or published for that end. And this they have practised in many cases of far less consequence than of these witches; that is, where any of their party make the least opposition to the orders of their church, and will not submit implicitly to their commands, or dare plead their light within against them. Thus have they ex communicated John Story, Wilkinson, and many other Quakers with them, for not submitting to the court of women's meeting, erected by G. Fox, as before is told; and since have done the same to G. Keith, not for his doctrine, they pretend, nor for any immorality in his life or conversation. What then? They say only for his stubbornness and con tradiction to them. And they excommunicated John Barnet, a Quaker merchant, only for selling a book of Will. Rogers's, (another Quaker dissenter to their women's meetings, and the authority assumed by their church,) called, The Christian Quaker, because they said it was prejudicial to the truth, by cor rupting people's minds, tending also to draw them into disesteem of many of the Lord's servants, as it is expressed in their bull of excommunication against him by the monthly meeting at Devonshire house, bearing date the 4th day of the 11th month, 1681. And they obliged John Bringhurst, a Quaker printer, to subscribe and print a condemnation of himself for printing of the said book, as you will see more at large in Satan Disrobed, sect. III. n. 2. of the Gleanings. Now we refer to their foresaid register of condemnations, whether these foresaid witches were obliged to sign such instruments of condemnation against themselves. Let them give us a transcript of this out of their register, otherwise let the world judge of the consequence, whe ther they have heartily and in good earnest disowned these witches and their inspirations.

But, say the Quakers, why should the miscar riages or failings of particular persons in our com munion be charged upon the whole community, more than in other communions; more than all the loose and debauched in the church of England ought to be made an objection against that church 2 I an swer, because the failings of the Quakers, of these witches, (for example,) of Naylor, of Milner, of Gil pin, of Toldervy, before mentioned, and of all their false prophets, are built upon and proceeding from the Quaker principle of the light within, and that notion which they have of it, as inferring personal perfection and infallible guidance of the Holy Spirit, &c. And therefore to shew personal failings in them, and a very fallible guidance of what they call their light within, is the plainest argument can be used to shew that they are not guided by a true light; but that that which they call their light is darkness, and is justly chargeable upon their principle, and consequently upon their whole communion. But no failing of any member in the church of England can be charged upon any principle of that church; nay, no man can be guilty of any scandal, such as we have objected against the Quakers, but he does thereby desert the known principles and doctrines of our church, and so far is literally a nonconform ist to our church; and therefore his nonconformity to our church cannot justly be made any objection against our church.

But if the Quaker humility will suffer them to come down to the common rank of other mortals; if they will acknowledge themselves to be fallible, deceivable, and peccable, like other men, that they may put darkness for light and light for darkness, as well as others, and are no surer of their inspirations than we are of ours; if they will freely and frankly own this, then shall they be admitted to the com mon privileges of mankind, and their personal fail ings will be charged no further than the person, and not upon their principle or community: and in such case it would be highly uncharitable, and a great sin, to expose the private failings of any.

But if they will stand upon a pinnacle above the level of all the rest of mankind, or of all who call themselves Christians, then must they expect to have their failings exposed, and not to be spared; there is no other way to humble them. If they believed themselves, they would desire, and not complain, to be brought to this test. Our Saviour provoked the Jews to it: Which of you, said he, convinceth me of sin? And if the Quakers had an unerring portion of the same spirit, (as they pretend,) and were free from sin, they would be further justified by the strictest disquisition could be made into their lives and actions. But to complain of this as hard usage, and claim all that tenderness and charitable cover ing of faults which is necessary for frail sinners, is a bewraying of their false pretence to innocency and perfection.

And yet they will keep up this pretence, though every one of them should fall after one another. For if any fall, the rest say, it was because he kept not to his light within: and so of a second, third, fourth, &c. How then are they distinguished, or kept more secure from falling than others?

This is so sensible a point, that though George Whitehead, in his Answer to the Snake, &c. (here after to be considered) gives some sort of excuse or other (such as it is) to other parts of the book, yet he passes this section of their diabolical possessions wholly untouched, and begins his catalogue of the mistakes, abuses, &c. in the Snake, at p. 93, after all that is there said concerning these monstrous possessions, whereby he yields the truth of them. And these possessed Quakers pretending to as high and certain inspiration as any of the others, and owned by the others, and gloried in by them till discovered, shews their plea to inspiration to be altogether precarious.

Especially when such are allowed to be preachers among them, as were two of Winder's witches, and that for a long time, for twenty years together, from near their beginning 1650 till 1674, that they were detected at the assizes in Carlisle. The Quakers take it very ill to suppose that Jesuits could preach among them undiscovered, though but for once: yet witches have done it twenty years together; and their infallibility in discerning no whit abashed. But when any one speaks against it, they cry out, “What! will you deny the infallibility of the Spi “rit, or the Spirit's teachings 2°Madly supposing, that every imagination which comes into their de luded minds is the certain inspiration of the Holy Ghost; nay, often mistaking the very possessions of the Devil for the motions of God's Spirit, as the possessed men before mentioned, and the murderous witches did themselves believe, and would have per suaded others, and did persuade the other Quakers for a long time, till discovered by others. For all others have a better spirit of discerning than the Quakers, who pretend most to it: for others have their judgment more clear, not prepossessed with enthusiastical blindness; and therefore see the be ginnings and tendings of the Quaker enthusiasm, and have all along told them what it would come to; while the Quakers were deluded by it, as they must confess, past all help of excuse in these Quaker witches, whom they admitted as preachers among them for so many years together, and in the other persons notoriously possessed by the Devil, and in all those whose personal failings have been as noto rious; and in all their now separatists, and those formerly, while they stayed among them. And all and every one of these had the same pretences and the same arguments and proofs for the Spirit as any other Quakers: and the Quakers would have thought it as great blasphemy to have opposed this pretence in these deluded persons, and a ridiculing of the teachings of the Spirit, as they think such an opposition is to themselves now. Nay, they did think so while these persons stayed among them, and called it so in those who opposed them; which is a full demonstration that they mistook the spirit of the Devil for the Spirit of God: that they took it so in others, they cannot deny; and mis why may they not so mistake it in themselves? for those others in whom they were mistaken did as much believe themselves in the right as these do now, and could give as much proof of it: and therefore these may be mistaken as well as they; nay, of all men are most mistaken, who have made witches their preachers, and taken them for saints, which is lite rally Satan transformed into an angel of light.

And surely they who believe him must be led by him.