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…

2 Timothy 3:5

Jeremiah 31:33

Acts 26:18

2 Corinthians 4:6

Romans 2:29

Romans 10:8

Colossians 1:27

Romans 1:19

Romans 1:16

2 Corinthians 3:6

Ephesians 6:12

Ephesians 4:13

1 Corinthians 15:47

Deuteronomy 30:14

2 Corinthians 13:5

2 Corinthians 4:4

1 Thessalonians 5:19

2 Timothy 1:10

Romans 8:2

Colossians 3:10

2 Corinthians 10:4

Joel 2:28

Galatians 1:16

1…

This afternoon we watched a rerun of a retrospective — Oprah Winfrey's Where Are They Now? Oprah interviewed the widowed husband of a young woman who decided to move to Oregon so she could take advantage of the assisted dying legislation there. She was living with inoperable brain tumors.

This evening we watched a documentary on CBC about a young man with cystic fibrosis. He and his friends run a weekly podcast at of Halifax where they discuss the granular minutia of living in this…

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…

I am working with a document purporting to list the 100 most frequently cited Bible verses in the writings of early Quakers compiled from the Quaker Bible Index. The text below is third on the list. I have provided the AV-1611 (commonly called the KJV)  as that would likely be how Fox and the first Friends heard this passage, and a more modern one (in this case the NRSV). …

It’s a World without Sin, everyone is ok

No need for Grace, from what people say

There’s no Hell to go to, no need to repent

it’s a World without Sin, a world without lent.

It’s a World without sin, the devil’s retired

there’s no one to tempt us, his imps have been fired

There’s no one way to God, Oprah has said

In John 14:6 Jesus was simply misread

It’s a World without Sin, we’re all children of God

we love one another, though sometimes its…

[The following is based upon vocal ministry given at Germantown Meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on 1 Tenth month 2017.]

In his Journal George Fox spoke of three kinds of dreams:

For there were…

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…