... By this principle they understand something that is Divine,
and though in man, not of man, but of God; it came from Him and leads to
Him all those who will be led by it ... it is the spirit given to every
man to profit withal."--William Penn, _Primitive Christianity Revived_
(1696). Quoted from J. S. Rowntree's _The Society of Friends; its Faith
and Practice_.
[48:1] Speaking of the early Quakers, Cotton Mather, after attributing
the origin of this sect "to some fanatics here in our town of Salem,"
describes the principles of "the old Foxian Quakerism" as follows:
"There is in every man a certain excusing and condemning _principle_,
which indeed is nothing but some _remainder_ of the Divine Image left by
the compassion of God upon the conscience of man after his fall.... They
scoffed at our imagined God beyond the stars." He also contends that
"the new turn such ingenuous men as Mr. Penn" had given to Quakerism,
had made of it "quite a new thing." See his _History of New England_,
book vii. chap. iv.
[49:1] The Rev. Thos. Bennet, on p. 4 of _An Answer to the Dissenters'
Pleas for Separation_, published in 1711, referring to the origin of the
various sorts of dissenters, speaks of the time "when Winstanley
published the principles of Quakerism, and enthusiasm broke out." In a
footnote he mentions _The Saint's Paradise_.
[49:2] Gerard Croese in _The General History of the Quakers_, published
1696, says, "The Quakers themselves date their first rise from the
forty-ninth year of the present century.
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