The experience of being gathered by God leads into the experience of being guided by God. This was not just the experience of individuals, important though this is. The key to the development of Quakerism is the understanding of corporate guidance which tests and informs individual leadings. At the heart of this is the meeting for worship where Christ, the Inward Light, is present and is met. Fox often wrote that Christ has come to teach his people himself. From this teaching comes Quaker faith & practice.
The testimonies
Simplicity
It brought with it difficulties. Thomas Chalkley (1675-1741) recalled his experience in the 1680s:
When between eight and ten years of age, my father and mother sent me near two miles to school, to Richard Scoryer, in the suburbs of London. I went mostly by myself to school; and many and various were the exercises I went through, by beatings and stonings along the streets, being distinguished to the people (by the badge of plainness which my parents put upon me) of what profession I was; divers telling me, 'Twas no more sin to kill me, than it was to kill a dog'.
Next: 19.43
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