The Early Quakers Knew the Truth

The focus of the Early Friends was on listening to God. This is why they held silent meetings. They knew that human activity, such as a programmed worship service, was not likely to be in response to a direct leading, received within after much waiting and prayer.

The power of those first Friends' meetings raised up ministers and evangelists who traveled all over England and beyond to preach the good news that "Christ has come to teach his people himself." When this is rightly understood, people come together to wait for this teaching, knowing that only the voice of God can deliver them from their bondage to fear, anger, pride, and other sins.

The first Quakers knew their deliverance to be complete, that is, God did not leave them in darkness, but proved his power greater than Satan's. As long as they obeyed his direct teaching and guidance, they were protected from sin in this life, and this was the blessed state that so many professing Christians of their day could not accept, and which gave the Early Friends courage and fortitude in the midst of beatings and imprisonments, and the illegal seizure of their goods and property.