The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth - As Revealed in the Writings of Gerrard Winstanley, the Digger, Mystic and Rationalist, Communist and Social Reformer by Lewis Henry Berens
page 62 of 360 (17%)
page 62 of 360 (17%)
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with those to-day still held by the Society of Friends, or Quakers,
whose original name amongst themselves, be it remembered, was the Children of Light. And it is interesting to note that during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the opponents of the Quakers repeatedly taunted them with being disciples of Winstanley the Leveller.[49:1] Thus the Right Reverend Thomas Coomber, Dean of Durham, in a pamphlet significantly entitled _Christianity no Enthusiasm: Or the several kinds of inspiration and Revelation pretended to by the Quakers tried and found destructive to Holy Scripture and True Religion_, published in 1678, wrote as follows: "First for their original, it may seem more difficult to discover, where Sects are not called after their Founder, but after some property, etc., it may be harder to trace them to their head. In 1652 their beginning is supposed, and then abouts they were so called and known. John Whitehead fixes it in the year 1648;[49:2] and Hubberthorne in 1660 told the King that they were then twelve years standing.[49:3] In that black year to these kingdoms (1648) their pretended light appeared.[50:1] ... But the very draughts and even body of Quakerism are to be found in the several works of Gerrard Winstanley, a zealous Leveller, wherein he tells us of the arising of new times and dispensations, and challengeth Revelation very much for what he writ." Coomber proceeds to quote from every one of Winstanley's theological pamphlets, and then continues: "That these are the Quaker principles is well enough known, allowing for some little alterations, as few Sect-Masters but have their doctrines varied by their Proselytes.... Now, considering |
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