Hell broke loose: or An history of the Quakers both old and new.: Setting forth many of their opinions and practices. Published to antidote Christians against formality in religion and apostasie. By Thomas Underhill citizen of London.

CHAP. I. Of the Quakers of these dayes: Shewing how they came so quickly to encrease, as they have done: And the Diversity of them.

1. THe old Church-Government being quite taken away, and no new one set up in its stead, all Laws that enjoyned people to heat Gods Word repealed, and the wayes of proceed∣ing against Hereticks, dying with the Government, factions and animosities breaking out into an unhappy War, in which the reins of men being more loose, and Souldiers having both provoca∣tions to stir up their pride, passion, and dissent from their ene∣mies to the heigth, and also opportunity to vent their opinions, and to propagate them with less contradiction, as being remo∣ved further from the inspection of able Ministers. A few Ana∣baptists,

Antinomians, Familists, that were the spawn of the fore∣mentioned Family of Love, Henry Nicholls, and the Grundletonians, but shrouding themselves at first under the name of Independents and Seperatists, upon pretence only of some corruptions in the Church, did grow in two or three years time to a multitude, spreading themselves and their conceits, through the several Ci∣ties, and Countries, and Armies; untill at last through the just hand of God, their combining for Tolleration, the great in∣dustry of disguised Jesuits, and their many flagitious abo∣minable practices, they arrived to that height and * 1.1 number, and to those advantages, for the propa∣gation of their wayes, which our eyes have seen, and the faithfull do lament. Oh what a great lump hath a little Leaven leavened! And for brevi∣ty sake, take the words of a great observer of the times.

A man would scarce have believed that saw the first spring of Seperation and Anabaptist∣ry among us, that it would have produced those fearfull effects, which we have since beheld. The Devil hath now got such an * 1.2 Army of Hereticks, to spit their venome daily in the face of Christ, that we may hear daily from their voices, whe∣ther Satan be for Christ, or against him. From Separation, and Anabaptisme, and Antinomianisme, they are proceeded to such madness and abomina∣ble conceits, and to so great variety of them, as I scarce read of in any time of the Church, except in the dayes of the Simoni∣ons, Nicolaitans, and the rest of the Gnosticks, in and near the dayes of the Apostles, and in the time of David George, and some others at the Reformation.

When many both Rulers and People desired, endeavoured, and expected such a Reformation, as to have seen a plenty of faithfull Teachers, and Discipline faithfully exercised, and God purely and seriously worshipped; we could not foresee, What grievous Wolves should enter, not sparing the flock; and that of our own selves, should men arise speaking perverse things, to draw away Disciples after them, Acts 20.29, 30. So that I think, we may almost compare with the first Hereticks, for vileness and va∣riety.

Some we have that turn Socinians, some turn Libertines, and some Familists, some Seekers, and some down-right Infidels.

Besides these, we have had, and yet have, a horrible Sect of men called Ranters; who make it their very Religion, to swear out the most foul-mouthed Oaths by multitudes, and openly blaspheme the God of Heaven, and so meet, and dance, and roar together, and commit whoredoms and filthiness without shame, so that they seem to match the Simonians and Nicolaitans. They fall into frensies, and there lie with their bodies swelled, & strangely acted; and then fall into their raptures and blasphemings. * 1.3 When the Law began to restrain these for their wicked practices, the same deceivng Spirit raiseth up another Sect in their stead called Quakers, who hold many of their Doctrines, and take their course in many other re∣spects: Only instead of ranting open wickedness, they pretend to as great mortification of the flesh, as the ancient Eremites, and more: They fall into trances, swell, quake, and tremble, and yell, and roar, and after the fit is over, fall a threatning Judgements, sometimes against common sinnes; but the life and venome of all their speeches and endeavours, is against the Ministry, * 1.4 to make them odious in the eyes of the people. The said Author goes on, and names a more soberer sort, possest with the fancies of Jacob Be∣mon the German paracelsian Prophet, and the Rosie∣crusians, that set themselves mainly to a mortification of bodi∣ly desires and delights, and advancing the intellective part above the sensitive (which is well;) but the Doctrine of Christ cruci∣fied, and Justification by him, is little minded by them. They do as the Quakers, maintain the Popish Doctrine of Perfection. That they can live without sin, or that some of them can. They aspire after visible Communion with Angels, and many of them pretend to have attained it, and frequently to see them: The rest have that immediate intuition of verities by the Spirit within them, or by revelation, that it is above meer rational ap∣prehension; and therefore they will not dispute, nor be moved by any Arguments or Scriptures that you bring, affirming, that Rationation cannot prevail against their intuition. The summe of their Doctrines is,

That we must be perfect.

And for subjecting the flesh to the intellect, we must live in con∣templation, lay by all Offices in the Commonwealth, and own no fleshly Relations as they call them; not the Relation of Bro∣ther, or Sister, not the Relation of a Magistrate, or of a Master, not the Relation of a Father, or Mother, Son, or Daughter, nor love any because of such a Relation; but only as Justice binds us to requital, for what they have done for us. That none should own the Relation of Husband, or Wife, nor love each other, as so related.

That we should endeavour to be perfect; and therefore to forbear all carnall acts of Generation, as being of sin, and of the Devil; and therefore Husband and Wife should part asunder, or abstain.

That all things should be common, and none should own pro∣priety; with abundance more, which are Jounded on certain vain unproved fancies of Behmens.

That God at first created man a spiritual body, in one sex on∣ly, that containing both sexes vertually, having an An∣gelical power of spiritual Generation; and that this gross cor∣poreity, and diversity of Sex, Marriage, and Generation, are all the fruits of sin, and Satan; with abundance more such au∣dacious vanities, not worth the reciting.

"Now I shall come more closely to treat of the people among us, that are commonly called Quakers. The chief Ringlead∣ers are named in the Quotations following.

Notes

• * 1.1

  The number of Quakers, of all sorts, that deny Christ, his Scripture, Mi∣nistry, and Or∣dinances, is no doubt 150000. in England.
• * 1.2

  Ths was written five years ago: How greatly are they en∣creased since then?
• * 1.3

  Act of O. C. against Blas∣pheming, which proves the truth of these things.
• * 1.4

  Baxters sin a∣gainst the Ho∣ly Ghost. p. 151.