In the year 1680, William Rogers published “The Christian Quaker Distinguished from the Apostate & Innovator, in Five Parts” as a response to what many Quakers at the time understood to be an introduction of a peremptory spirit into the gathering led by George Fox. This categorical process was manifested by George Fox’s establishment of outward institutional forms and prescriptions, the adherence to which, was enforced through ridicule and demonization and other activities over against those Quakers who demurred against the enforcement of such outward forms over against the conscience of others in the gathering.

Rogers called this publication his “Historical Treatise,” intending it as a remembrancer of those early Quakers who were come out of being guided and informed by outward forms and institutions and who were come into the sufficiency of and dependency on the direct inshining Spirit itself in itself as their sole guide in matters of human conscience, relations, and interactions.

This newly keyboarded version,from a facsimile of the 1680 publication, retains the topography and spelling of the original. For those who wish to cross-reference the keyboarded text with the original, page markers that match the pages in the original are embedded throughout the keyboarded text. For example {Third Part 27} indicates the same place is found in the original document in the Third Part of the book on page 27.

The book is in various formats. There is a web version and a pdf version available. Both versions are hyperlink rich. The pdf version is a bit more dynamic and interactive than the web version as it contains internal hyperlinks in the index of the book among other linked content.

The web version is published on Blogger and is the “notebook” side of the “The Chrisitan Quaker” published on separate pages. The vision of this setup is to use the notebook to create note cards from content in the book itself and to cross-reference through interactive links with other early Quaker books and pamphlets published in the same manner.

Link to web version on Blogger

Link to PDF Version of The Christian Quaker at archive.org