Frederick Martin
Francis Howgill was one of the “First Publishers of Truth,” the early Quaker traveling ministers, and a leader of the early Quaker movement in the 1650’s and 1660’s. Not as widely known today, in the beginning of the movement he was an effective preacher, a widely-loved elder, and a prolific author. He is known today mostly for his beautiful description of the Seekers’ conversion on Firbank Fell, reprinted in many books of Faith and Practice:
“the kingdom of heaven did gather us and catch us all, as in a net, and His heavenly power at one time drew many hundreds to land. We came to know a place to stand in and what to wait in; and the Lord appeared daily to us, to our astonishment amazement and great admiration.” [i]
Yet he fell out of favor at some point: most of his works have never been reprinted since they were first collected in 1676 for The Dawnings of the Gospel Day. A rhetorical analysis of his works as originally printed, in each work’s context relative to political, military and social events during his lifetime, shows that Howgill continued to have an apocalyptic theological vision even after it became unpopular with the fall of the Commonwealth. He used symbolism and narrative from the book of Revelation throughout almost all of his work, meaningful symbolism that conveyed his religious belief in an apocalypse present in his age – a turn of the ages, toward a new revealing of God. But his vision was forgotten.
Besides his testimony to Burrough, only one other work been commonly reprinted in the popular literature used by Friends: his autobiographical convincement narrative, contained in The Inheritance of Jacob Discovered. Examining how later editors presented it over time gives a revealing case-study of how the first Friends have been interpreted by later periods of Quaker history. We are left with the question of what might happen to our understanding of Quakerism today when we try to see Howgill’s apocalypticism in its true context.
Howgill was born in 1618 near the village of Greyrigg in Westmoreland in northern England. He was well educated, apparently trained as a minister, and in adulthood married twice, had children, and worked a small farm. From age twelve, he began both to seek for a better relationship with God, and to question whether the splintered competing churches of the time could provide the answers he sought. He tried out many variations on Puritan doctrine, and moved from Independents (who “pres[sed] separation”) to Anabaptists to Free Grace preachers, and began settling on beliefs similar to George Fox’s before Fox arrived in his area. He was a leader of a group of dissatisfied religious people around Sedbergh, part of a movement who called themselves Seekers.[ii]
But something was still lacking, until Fox declared the Day of the Lord to them at Firbank Fell, when Howgill and several hundred other Seekers were convinced all at once. [iii] It was 1652; the event at Firbank Fell is generally considered a major turning point at the start of the Quaker movement [iv] . Howgill was among the older of the very first Quakers at age 34, and right away became a leader of the movement and a major preacher in London and Ireland. From the beginning, Friends usually performed their travelling ministry in pairs, often older and younger, and Howgill formed a team with the “Son of Thunder” Edward Burrough, sixteen years younger. Burrough died early in prison, and Howgill wrote a moving testimony to their friendship.
Howgill also died in prison, in 1668; he was brought before the magistrates on a pretext while at home in Sedbergh, and tendered an oath (of allegiance). He spent five years in Appleby jail before he died, writing a quarter of his life’s works from prison, including two books, The Great Case of Tythes Revived and Oaths No Gospel Ordinance. After his death, supporters from Appleby and Westmoreland wrote up a 5-page tract, “A Short Account of the Latter End and Dying Words of Francis Howgil, Who dyed a Prisoner for the Testimony of Jesus, in Appulby the Twentieth Day of the Eleaventh Moneth, 1668.” They explain at the bottom of the title page in place of a publisher’s name, that “This is Printed and Published in the Year 1671, for Friends, at the desire of some; because many have not seen it (nor could so well have it) in Manuscript.” [v] –a fairly objective indication of the status of Howgill as a beloved leader of the early movement of the Children of the Light.
Shortly after his death, his writings were collected and re-published as The Dawnings of the Gospel-Day, and its Light and Glory Discovered (1676). It’s 773 pages long, with 38 pieces, 14 of them originally books over 20 pages, along with an account of his last trial, four testimonials to him including one by Fox, and his touching last letter to his daughter Abigail. Categorizing them by genre, we find five types:
- Epistles to Friends: 11
- Dispute or Controversial; refuting attacks against Quakers: 10
- Doctrinal; teaching Quaker beliefs: 8
- Appeals, political exhortations to rulers such as Cromwell or the Army: 5
- Proclamations; woes and warnings declaring the Day of the Lord: 4
These categories match the classifications by David Runyon for Hugh Barbour in the anthology Early Quaker Writings, except that I distinguished Doctrinal tracts from Disputes, because Howgill has a number of positive expositions of Quaker faith (inspirational if unsystematic invitations to faith, rather than argumentative responses to others).
Literary analysis of any tract written during the period of the English Revolution should always take into account the political moment or historical circumstances in which it appeared, and the audience it addressed. Especially after the collapse of press censorship in 1641, with the tolerance of debate and radical opinions within the New Model Army and Cromwell’s toleration of diverse religious opinions, anarchy reigned in publishing and preaching, and it was already an age prone to hyperbole and rhetorical excess.
Time and political context affected his rhetorical strategies and goals: Howgill’s epistle to Oliver Cromwell is full of religious imagery proclaiming the Day of the Lord – it’s 1654, when the Quaker movement was growing fast; while in1659 just before the fall of the Commonwealth, he’s much more cautious with his “Information and also Advice to the Army on both parts, and this present Committee of Safety,” a carefully reasoned patriotic appeal urging patience and making political suggestions, though still warning of God’s providences. So his strategy even for one type of audience changes as historical/political circumstances change, an important point to remember when we get to the Restoration.
Conversely, for pieces written at about the same time but aimed at different audiences, there is a striking difference in rhetorical approach. A fascinating example is a long general epistle written in 1655 and first printed together with Edward Burrough’s “To the Camp of the Lord in England” (1655). But Howgill’s epistle actually has this heading on the front page: “This is Onely to Goe amongst Friends.”
A secret epistle! A private audience! (Really, these communiques marked for Friends’ eyes only were not actually too unusual, according to Rosemary Moore.) In works around the same time directed to outsiders he declares woes like the 1653 one titled “A Woe Against the Magistrates Priests and People of Kendall” [vi], warns nations to repent in 1654’s “A Warning to All the World”, and argues controversially with other groups in A Lamentation for the Scattered Tribes of 1656. So what is his message to us initiates? It is tender and poetic love, and instruction, and fiery and dramatic encouragement. An example of instruction, about the Inward Light: “Stand still in Patience, and let it have its perfect Work in you, and bear [typo in 1676 corrected from hear, following the 1656 edition] the Indignation, ye that are in it; if you endure the Tribulation with Patience, Hope you will see.” [vii] An example of some extremely exciting encouragement:
And to you my dear Brethern & Fellow-Labourers, to whom the Word of Reconciliation is committed, & are in the Work and Ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ, and are made partakers of the everlasting Gospel of peace…; Lift up your Voices, blow the Trumpet, sound an Alarm out of the holy Mountain, proclaim the acceptable Year, and the Day of Vengeance of our God; gird on your Sword… and follow him forever, who rides upon the white Horse [Rev. 19:11]…: Ride on, ride on my beloved Brethren and Fellow-Souldiers, …beat the Mountains to Dust… Spare none, neither… old nor young; Kill, cut off, destroy, bathe your Sword in the Blood of Amaleck…. cast out the unclean Spirits; raise the Dead; [viii] 1655)
And he ends the epistle with intense tenderness:
O beloved Ones, who are the Children of my eternal Father, who have eaten at his Table, and drunken of the new Wine in the Kingdom of God, who are nourished and dandled upon the Lap of everlasting Love, who suck at the Breasts of everlasting Consolation; you Beauty is comely, I am ravished, I am filled, I am filled with Love to you all, I am sick of Love, your Beauty hath ravished my Heart:… and in him I meet you, and leave you in his Arms; I lye down with you in the bosom of eternal Love, Life, Peace, Joy and Rest forever, where none can make us afraid. [ix] (Howgill 1655)
Suffice it to say that language like this is not used with outsider audiences.
Howgill’s triumphant, even triumphalist tone is a reflection of the great success the Quaker movement was having in the social and political situation of the time. The English Civil War had resulted in unprecedented social space for radical groups, both political and religious, to grow and find mainstream legitimacy. The New Model Army originally raised by Parliament against King Charles I, had taken on a life of its own, and became a political force, creating a Puritan Commonwealth ruled by Parliament and then a military dictatorship commanded by Oliver Cromwell.
Douglas Gwyn argues that the Quaker movement began and continued, in this unstable moment, as an apocalyptic movement: the first Friends saw events around them in eschatological terms as the end of the world, at least as they knew it, with a radical, utter change to a new world where God was present. Note Howgill’s references to the tribulation, the White Horse (from Revelation 19), and “the new Wine in the Kingdom” all apocalyptic language. Gwyn says that “The Quaker revolution continued its spectacular growth through 1655… Burrough and Howgill worked at a frantic pace in London, where people came to Friends from a variety of social stations and classes. …as the year closed, Friends were still expanding in numbers, influence, and sociopolitical critique.” [x] Indeed, Howgill’s sweet language of overwhelmed love and joy in the “intense tender-ness” example can also be understood better in this context of success and hope.
Howgill’s rhetorical strategy, and his goals, had changed by 1665, due to an utterly changed political situation – the Restoration of the monarchy. Consider this example from his “General Epistle to all who have believed in the Light of the Lord Jesus, and are called of God to follow the LAMB through the great Tribulation:
“Oh therefore all watch and be circumspect so much the more against Temptations, lest you be ensnared, and your Faith fail… in not continuing Faithful to the End: …Friends, a Care, and a tender Love… is in my Heart to you… to stir you unto Faithfulness in the Day of Trial; for now Satan desires to winnow you within… [xi]
Much of the letter has this tone: calling for patience; warning of temptations; pleading for Friends to continue meeting openly despite being jailed for it. By 1665 a new Parliament led by Clarendon and influenced by Anglican clergy was passing laws to persecute Friends: the Quaker Act of 1662 and the Convent-icle Acts of 1664 and 1670. Many Friends were imprisoned simply for meeting; many remained there many years, or died there, because of their refusal to take oaths in the courtroom.
In this context of political disappointment, it is a bit surprising to find Howgill still using apocalyptic symbolism in 1665. He knew the political moment had passed: he had written a political tract in the crisis year of 1659, called “One Warning more unto England, Before She give up the Ghost.” Yet he does still have an eschatological vision. The most explicit example is found at the end of The Great Case of Tythes and Forced Maintenance once more Revived, written in 1665. Howgill appended a set of eighteen queries which read like a catechism of the book of Revelation, or a test, a secret society’s passwords, which presumably Friends could answer correctly. Here are some selections:
1. What was the Woman that was cloathed with the Sun, and crowned with twelve Stars, which travailed in Pain to bring forth? […]
3. And what was the Man-child that was brought forth, seeing Christ was born of the Virgin in Bethlehem long before John saw this in the Isle of Pathmos? [ ]
11. When begin the one thousand Years that he [the Dragon] shall be bound? or whether is it begun, or to come? [ ]
18. And what is the Light of the Lamb the Nations that are saved shall walk in after the seven Vials be poured upon the Seat of the Beast? Declare if thou hast Understanding. [xii]
Many Quaker preachers, including Fox, applied the symbolism of Revelation to the events around them, claiming that the visible church had been apostate since just after the “primitive times.” (The true spiritual church, composed of scattered believers hidden from the world, was represented by the woman who fled into the wilderness, in #4 above.)
This paper does not have space to expand on how Howgill and other early Friends applied these symbols. However, examining the verb tenses in queries #11 and #17 (and others) shows that Howgill still believed that an apocalyptic time was either happening, or at least immanent. Apocalyptic imagery, reflecting an apocalyptic theology, appears in many of his works. For instance, the “woes and warnings” are all intended to warn of the coming day of the Lord, the dawning of the apocalypse: “Wo, Wo unto all the Inhabitants; for the Lord God of Power is coming in Power and great Glory, with ten thousand of his saints, … to judege the Earth and to make a Desolation; and an utter Overthrow.” [xiii] And apocalyptic language is found throughout his most frequently reprinted work – one of his most moving – his autobiographical The Inheritance of Jacob Discovered, written to declare the new truth of the Quaker movement and to urge readers to adopt it.
Let us now turn to: Reading Howgill through history
The interpretation of a text can vary as the historical events surrounding the text are themselves interpreted differently. Howgill’s works provide an interesting case study of this phenomenon, as we can find abridged republications of his work in several periods in the last three centuries, which reflect several different interpretations of the history of the first period of Quakerism. The most commonly republished piece of Howgill’s work is his convincement narrative, which he wrote in 1655 as part of The inheritance of Jacob discovered.[xiv] The original text is addressed to the general English reader of the time and exhorts and invites the reader to follow the revelatory path Howgill describes. He includes an autobiographical section (pp 39-44 in Dawnings), describing his own youth, his days as the leader of a Seeker congregation, his crucial emotional/ spiritual experience after hearing George Fox preach, and how he and his fellow Seekers reacted as they became collectively convinced of the truth Fox was preaching about the appearance of Christ within. His convincement and conversion happen in one moment: a three-page passage full of the vivid pyrotechnics of an inner apocalypse, a continuous string of more than thirty separate references to scripture, at least twenty-five them apocalyptic passages such as Mark 13, Jeremiah, or Isaiah, and eighteen from the book of Revelation. As we shall see, different editors through the centuries, Quakers all, have read, interpreted and excerpted – Howgill’s story in quite different ways.
In 1828 James Backhouse, a Quaker minister and botanist, published his Memoirs of Francis Howgill. Backhouse reprints Howgill’s autobiography almost verbatim; however, he does shorten sentences here and there, and in the pivotal passage of convincement, Backhouse leaves out ten or twelve of the eighteen references to Revelation. On the other hand, Backhouse also reprints most of Some of the Mysteries of God’s Kingdom Declared, Howgill’s longest and most explicit doctrinal work, and does retain statements like “The Lord God… is manifesting himself… and is pouring forth of his Spirit upon sons and daughters. The Lord… hath now appeared in this the day of his power, and is appearing…” (Backhouse p. 97) Whether the apocalyptic understanding of Quaker theology had survived, or whether Backhouse was reviving it, it is still available to some extent in 1828.
In 1842, an anonymous editor in London published an excerpt from this work, most of the autobiographical portion with a few paragraphs of the exhortations (roughly pp 39-46 in Dawnings), titled Some Account of the Exercises of Francis Howgill in his search after the saving knowledge of God: written in the year 1655. To which is added a brief sketch of his life. We can already see in the title of this republication a hint of the evangelical interpretation of Quaker history that this editor is working with: he focuses on “the saving knowledge.” In his commentary after the reprint, the “brief sketch of his life,” the editor describes Howgill’s convincement in these terms:
“Francis Howgill being on this occasion, as he informs us, convinced ‘that the light of Christ in man was the way to Christ,’ yielded obedience to its divine teachings, and was soon able to testify, from his own blessed experience, that he is the way, the only way– to the Father (John, xiv. 6). The early Friends could in truth say with the apostle, “we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord,” (2 Cor. iv. 5)” [xv]
The editor takes Howgill’s statement that the light is the way to Christ, changes its import slightly to emphasize that Christ is the only way to the Father, and by repeating it, emphasizes the importance of belief over practice (obedience); the editor also takes care to showcase how his observations are scripturally based by using Biblical citations. All these interpretations by the 1842 editor are consonant with the prevailing evangelical mood among British Quakers in the 1840’s.
In 1942, a minister in England who associated with Quakers published an appreciation of Howgill and his works called Gray Ridge: The Book of Francis Howgill. Will Hayes was part of the movement after the Second World War toward a pluralist or universalist Quaker theology. For example, Hayes reaches a very different conclusion than the 1842 editor does about Howgill’s theological orientation even quoting, much more briefly, from exactly the same passage (pp 8-9 in the 1842 republication)!
“This man was really a good Universalist, but he knew only of Christian teaching and had to put the story of his strivings into Christian language: ‘It was revealed in me that the Lord would teach his people himself: so I waited… …As soon as I heard one declare that the Light of Christ in man is the way to Christ, I believed the eternal Word of Truth.’” [xvi]
His interpretation fits well with the mid-1900’s theological liberalism espoused by Rufus Jones and W.C. Braithwaite.
Others have found Howgill less inspiring. The appendix of Early Quaker Writings calls Howgill’s works “mostly long, gentle, and doctrinal.” [xvii] Editors Barbour and Roberts literally bracket some of the apocalyptic elements found in Howgill’s writings, and misidentify other instances of apocalyptic symbolism. In their reprinting of The inheritance of Jacob Discovered, in the middle of Howgill’s description of his pivotal spiritual travails after conviction by the Light Within, Barbour and Roberts edit out what they call “a dozen sentences from Psalms of lamentation” [xviii] . But 9 of the 16 references I identify are to Revelation: from page 43-44 in Dawnings: “one Wo poured out after another,” (Rev. 8:13 & 16:1 combined) “and I sought Death in that Day, and could not find it,” (Rev. 9:6) “the Beast and the false Prophet” (Rev. 19:20) and so on.
References to Revelation are also redacted from the 1842 edition. The 1842 editor inserts many parenthetical scripture references helpfully showing what verses Howgill is alluding to (or sometimes quoting) in his figures of speech. On page 9, containing the beginning of Howgill’s crucial spiritual crisis, his conviction by the Light after hearing Fox preach, the 1842 editor provides citations for Howgill’s allusions to John, Ephesians, Psalms, Proverbs, and Luke. He uncharacteristically doesn’t give a citation for a reference to Revelation (“I sought death in that day, and could not find it,” Rev. 9:6, again)… and edits out all the others, including even the ark of the testament (Rev. 11:19) as well as all the ones mentioned above that Barbour and Roberts edit out.
Douglas Gwyn, advancing the eschatological interpretation of Quaker history, also studies Howgill’s convincement narrative, in Seekers Found. He does not directly quote the same passage that the 1842 editor and Hayes both dwell on, the more belief-oriented line about how “the light of Christ in man was the way to Christ.” Instead, he focuses on what I concur is the pivotal moment for Howgill: where that way leads, a few (long) sentences later, where Howgill suffers as “‘the dreadful power of the Lord fell on me with fear and terror’” until he “did give up to all his judgments, [and then] the captive came forth out of prison and rejoiced.’” Gwyn summarizes: “by standing still in that place… Howgill was taken… into genuine personal transformation.” [xix] Ironically, Gwyn does not mention the Revelation imagery in the original passage, even though it would strengthen his argument, since the entire chapter in which these quotes appear argues that that year in Quaker history was the moment of apocalypse, the coming of the Day of the Lord, within the hearts of those who were becoming Quakers.
Were Howgill’s works suppressed? His apocalyptic vision censored? We have seen that apocalyptic imagery in his convincement narrative has been edited out or minimized. It’s a chicken-and-egg question, and it may be more fair to say that as fashions in Quaker faith changed, Howgill was reinterpreted to speak to those ages. Historian Rosemary Moore also encountered this; she notes that “later editions [of Quaker works] cannot be relied upon” because editors redacted them (Moore 2000 p. 231). Editors must compress; they remove material they feel is less relevant; they removed the allusions to Revelation because they had an interpretation of Quakerism that emphasized faith in Jesus, or the universality of the Light, or the inner questioning that their Puritan neighbors also engaged in. Yet Howgill states baldly that God was changing the world, and the apocalyptic symbolism and language throughout his works and its central presence in his convincement narrative should give Quakers of the present day reason to believe that an apocalyptic interpretation of the theology and social activism of the first Friends, gets us much closer to the heart of their insights than we have been heretofore.
Howgill believed that the Kingdom of God had begun, in the hearts and communities of Friends; the second coming of Jesus was happening spiritually, and was transforming the conduct and bodies of individuals and groups, would transform whole regions and cities; the world. He was disappointed politically, and recalibrated his own expectations. But he never gave up the assertion that God would bring and prosper God’s Kingdom to Friends on earth. He joined the apocalyptic expectations that were common long before the Revolution across the board in England. But at the end of the Protectorate, instead of abandoning hopes for a nation ruled by God as popular opinion had to, he could center on his individual- and-community-level hopes and continue to see the Kingdom of God revealed there.
It’s theologically valid to have a multi-stage kingdom; some theologians call it an “inaugurated eschatology,” and the Quaker vision of the 1650’s has had many parallels before and since even within mainstream Christianity. Eschatology is a branch of theology fraught with uncertainty, since it’s about the future, and it gets a bad rap these days when the Left Behind series, Harold Camping, and the Mayan calendar movies push their cartoonish propaganda. But apocalypse doesn’t have to equal destruction: a vision of how God remakes and renews the world can help connect the social ramifications of spiritual life with a sense of historical movement. And I would offer that recovering a robust sense of early Quaker eschatology, especially if placed within its historical context of society-wide apocalyptic hopes, gives a better sense of their overall theological and social vision, and reinterpreted for our time, can offer us theological and social resources for ours.
Howgill – Notes
[I] New England Yearly Meeting of Friends., Faith and Practice of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, 55; Howgill et al., A Testimony Concerning the Life, Death, Trials, Travels and Labours of Edward Burrough, preface.
[II] Hayes, Gray Ridge: The Book of Francis Howgill, 19–23; Barbour and Roberts, Early Quaker Writings, 1650-1700, 597.
[III] Hayes, Gray Ridge: The Book of Francis Howgill, 19–23; Barbour and Roberts, Early Quaker Writings, 1650-1700, 597.
[IV] Dandelion, An Introduction to Quakerism, 15, 24.
[V] Bolton, A Short Account of the Latter End and Dying Words of Francis Howgil.
[VI] Howgill, The Dawnings of the Gospel Day, and Its Light and Glory Discovered, 1.
[VII] Howgill, To the Camp of the Lord in England, 13–14.
[VIII] Ibid., 31–32.
[IX] Howgill, To the Camp of the Lord in England, 6–7.
[X] Gwyn, The Covenant Crucified: Quakers and the Rise of Capitalism, 150, 151.
[XI] Howgill, The Dawnings of the Gospel Day, and Its Light and Glory Discovered, 604.
[XII] Ibid., 602–603.
[XIII] Ibid., 26.Ibid.Ibid.Ibid.Ibid.
[XIV] Ibid., 37–60; Howgill, The Inheritance of Jacob Discovered.
[XV] Howgill, Some Account of the Exercises of Francis Howgill in His Search After the Saving Knowledge of God..., 14.
[XVI] Hayes, Gray Ridge: The Book of Francis Howgill, 22.
[XVII] Barbour and Roberts, Early Quaker Writings, 1650-1700, 597.
[XVIII] Ibid., 174.Ibid.Ibid.Ibid.Ibid.
[XIX] Gwyn, Seekers Found: Atonement in Early Quaker Experience, 232.
References
Barbour, Hugh, and Roberts, eds. 2004. Early Quaker Writings, 1650-1700. Wallingford, PA: Pendle Hill Publications.
Bolton, John. A Short Account of the Latter End and Dying Words of Francis Howgil. London: n.p., 1671.
Dandelion, Pink. An Introduction to Quakerism. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Graves, Michael P. Preaching the Inward Light: Early Quaker Rhetoric. Studies in Rhetoric and Religion 9. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2009.
Gwyn, Douglas. Seekers Found: Atonement in Early Quaker Experience. Wallingford, PA: Pendle Hill Publications, 2000.
—–, The Covenant Crucified: Quakers and the Rise of Capitalism. Wallingford, PA: Pendle Hill Publications, 1995.
Hayes, Will. Gray Ridge: The Book of Francis Howgill. Meopham Green, Kent, UK: The Order of the Great Companions, 1942.
Howgill, Francis, George Fox, George Whitehead, and Josiah Coale. A Testimony Concerning the Life, Death, Trials, Travels and Labours of Edward Burrough : That Worthy Prophet of the Lord Who Dyed a Prisoner for the Testimony of Jesus, and the Word of God, in the City of London, the 14th of the 12th Month, 1662. F. H. Early English Books Online. London: [s.n.], 1663. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebookbatch.EEBON_batch:99829255e.
Howgill, Francis. Some Account of the Exercises of Francis Howgill in His Search After the Saving Knowledge of God… London: Luxford & Co., 1842.
—–, The Dawnings of the Gospel Day, and Its Light and Glory Discovered. Early English Books Online. London: n.p., 1676.
—–, The Inheritance of Jacob Discovered, After His Return Out of Egypt: And the Leading of the Lord to the Land of Promise, Declared, and Some Information of the Way Thither... London: Giles Calvert, 1656. (Notations, capitalization, spelling, and italics were reproduced as found in the original.)
—–, To the Camp of the Lord in England. Early English Books, 1641-1700; 1405:3. London?: s.n., 1655. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebookbatch.EEBON_batch:ocm10741435e.
New England Yearly Meeting of Friends. Faith and Practice of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends : Book of Discipline. Worcester, MA (901 Pleasant St., Worcester 01602): New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, 1986.