Dæmonologia Sacra; or, A Treatise of Satan's Temptations: In Three PartsGilpin, Richard
Religion
Dæmonologia Sacra; or, A Treatise of Satan's Temptations: In Three Parts
Gilpin, Richard
Devil -- Early works to 1800; Temptation -- Early works to 1800
I have described the parish of Greystoke as tranquil; but even into
it there swept—as the sea-swell sweeps into the smallest nook of
shore—the ruffle of that agitation which pervaded the nation in
religious matters; and, inasmuch as it gives colour and tone to not
a few passages of the ‘_Dæmonologia Sacra_,’—his difficulty with the
Quakers—to which I have made reference—falls now to be chronicled.
We shall have an after-occasion to notice subsequent interviews with
the pre-eminently good, though provoking, Quaker missionary-preacher,
Thomas Story. Here I glean my information from the ‘Memoir’ of a
‘Greystoke’ celebrity, HENRY WINDER, D.D.[35] The following, then, is
the narrative, omitting irrelevant portions:—
‘The Reverend Richard Gilpin, M.D., was the parish minister of
Graystock before the Restoration.... Some time before the Restoration
Quakerism began to spread in Cumberland and Westmoreland. Among other
things remarkable in their behaviour, the Quakers would go into the
parish church of Graystock, and disturb Dr Gilpin in the pulpit during
divine worship. And such were their novel phrases and cross questions
and answers, that the Doctor seemed sometimes at a loss what to say
to them. Upon that, some of his parishioners were stumbled, withdrew
from their former communion, and defended the cause of the Quakers.
Among others Henry Winder was seduced, to the no small grief of good Dr
Gilpin and his friends. A day of humiliation and prayer was appointed,
in which Dr Gilpin, and some of the neighbouring ministers, as well
as some of the laity of that parish, took such proper methods as to
recover some that had fallen, and to confirm and establish those that
were wavering, though, before that, the infection had spread far and
wide. Then was Henry Winder secretly resolved to comply with the
desire of Dr Gilpin and his church, and make some public recantation.
But these convictions did not last long. For notwithstanding several
conferences with him, Henry Winder openly joined with the Quakers, and
continued among them some years.... Henry Winder and his [second] wife
[finally] left the Quakers, returning to Dr Gilpin’s church, in which
they afterwards continued.’[36]
All this goes far to explain the unusual severity of the ‘_Dæmonologia
Sacra_’ against Quakers and Quakerism—as also the ‘Agreement’—and
the grave classification of ‘double meanings,’ and ‘light within,’
&c., &c., among evident ‘devices’ of the Devil. At this later day we
willingly forget the eccentricities and vulgarities and blunders of
the early followers of GEORGE FOX, and in the spirit of the ‘Quakers’
Meeting’ of winsome Elia, reverence the service of this once powerful
and still honoured and altogether inoffensive section of God’s people.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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