SOURCE: Walker, D. P. “English Philadelphians: (1) Mrs. Lead.” In The Decline of Hell: Seventeenth-Century Discussions of Eternal Torment, pp. 218-30. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1964.

In this excerpt from his study of the belief in eternal damnation and cultural forces supporting it, Walker takes a critical stance towards the logic of Lead's doctrine of universal salvation. Walker discusses Lead's debt to Dr. John Pordage and Jakob Boehme, noting that her belief in universal salvation represents a break from the Boehmenist tradition.

The Philadelphian Society was a small group of chiliastic mystics led by an elderly widow, Mrs Jane Lead. The name ‘Philadelphian’ derives from the sixth of the seven Churches of Asia to which Christ, at the beginning of the Apocalypse, sends messages. It is clear from the text, if one reads it as a prophecy of successive ages of the Church, that the Philadelphian Church is to be...