[370] Penn states the doctrines of Quakerism in his preface, xiii. et seq.
[371] "They asked me if I had no sin? I answered, 'Christ my Saviour has taken away my sin, and in Him there is no sin.'" "They pleaded for imperfection, and to sin as long as they lived, but did not like to hear of Christ's teaching His people Himself, and making people as clear, whilst here upon the earth, as Adam and Eve were before they fell."—Journal, i. 124, 288.
[372] Fox had an intense aversion to all Gnosticism.—See Journal, i. 143. I do not ascribe mysticism to him in any bad sense of the word.
[373] He describes himself as passing through strange states of extasy, (Journal, i. 144) and even claims gifts of prophecy and miracle, (i. 219.) He had a habit of comparing sinners to different sorts of animals, Journal, i. 190, &c. A curious parallel to this is found in Athanasius, who describes heretics in a similar way. Comp. Athan. Orat. iii. contra Arianos. Athanasius's Treatises against Arianism, p. ii. 484, Oxf. Edit.
For authorities respecting Quakerism see a good note in Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History, 846.
[374] Journal, i. 151.
[375] A Collection of many select and Christian Epistles, written by George Fox, p. i.
[376] See Fox's Epistles, p. 2.
"There is an English ship come in here from Newfoundland. The master hath been on board of us. There is not, they say, one person in the ship, officer or mariner, but are all Quakers."—Thurloe, v. 422.
There are references to the spread of Quakerism in the same collection, iv. 333, 408, 757.