Research Note, Inshining Light sufficiency, Outward Forms, excommunication, I AM

In The Quakers Spiritual Court Proclaimed published in 1669, Nathaniel Smith writes:

... all Sects, Formes, or other Dispensations, it thou please to call them so (or by what Name soever) after they have raised to themselves a considerable number of People, then they go about to set up themselves, and make to themselves Laws, whereby they may Govern, and bear Rule…

In 1669 Nathanial Smith wrote a tract entitled “The Quakers Spiritual Court” wherein he documents the Quaker use of outward ecclesiastical forms and leaders to rule over the conscience of others in the gathering. Smith became a Quaker at 19 years of age and remained so for about fourteen years. It seems he was among those of the first Quakers. Smith calls himself a “Physick.” Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary (1792) defines Physick as “originally signifying natural philosophy, has been transferred…

In 1655 a tract was publish entitled “To all that would know the way to the Kingdom, whether they be in forms, Without Forms, or Got above all Forms ...” Authorship was “Given forth by those whom the world in scorn calls Quakers.” This usually means there were multiple people who contributed to the writing of the tract. In 1706 a compilation of some of George Fox’s writings was published under the title “Gospel-Truth Demonstrated, in a Collections Of Doctrinal Books, Given forth by that…