Excerpt from A Concise Account of the Religious Society of Friends, Commonly Called Quakers: Embracing a Sketch of Their Christian Doctrines and Practices The ecclesiastical and the civil power were frequently Shifting hands, and the national form of religion changing with every change of rulers; new sects and opinions arising, and different teachers of religion inviting attention, and saying, lo, here is Christ, or lo, He is there. In this state of things it is not surprising that the Sincere inquirers after the right way of the Lord should have been greatly perplexed. The effect of these commotions was to wean men from a dependence on each other in the work of religion, and to prepare their minds for the reception of the important truth, that, however useful instrumental means of divine appointment may be, it is the glory and excellence of the gospel dispensation that the Lord, by his Holy Spirit, is him self the teacher of his people. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.