them; (2) A prophetical account of several things, whereof some are already past and some yet to come; (3) A full and ample account of all the chief principles of the doctrine of Christ ...  Nevertheless, because they are only a declaration of the fountain, and not the fountain itself, therefore they are not to be esteemed the principal ground of all Truth and Knowledge, nor yet the adequate primary rule of faith and manners.  Nevertheless, as that which giveth a true and faithful testimony of the first foundation, they are and may be esteemed a secondary rule, subordinate to the Spirit, from which they have all their excellency and certainty.”  So much for the form of the central principle of Early Quakerism, so far as it can be expressed logically.  But it was in the resolute application of the principle in practice that the Early Quakers made themselves conspicuous.  They were not Speculative Voluntaries, waiting for the abolition of the National Church, and paying tithes meanwhile.  They were Separatists who would at once and in every way assert their Separatism.  They would pay no tithes; they called every church “a steeple-house”; and they regarded every parson as the hired performer in one of the steeple-houses.  Then, in their own meetings for mutual edification and worship, all their customs were in accordance with their main principle.  They had no fixed articles of congregational creed, no prescribed forms of prayer, no ordinance of baptism or of sacramental communion, no religious ceremony in sanction of marriage, and no paid or appointed preachers.  The ministry was to be as the spirit moved; all equally might speak or be silent, poor as well as rich, unlearned as well as learned, women as well as men; if special teachers did spring up amongst them, it should not be professionally, or to earn a salary.  Yet, with all this liberty among themselves, what unanimity in the moral purport of their teachings!  Their restless dissatisfaction with the Established Church and with all known varieties of Dissent, their passion for a full reception of Christ at the fountain-head, their searchings of the Scriptures, their private raptures and meditations, their prayers and consultations in public, had resulted in a simple re-issue of the Christianity of the Sermon on the Mount.  Quakerism, in its kernel, was but the revived Christian morality of meekness, piety, benevolence, purity, truthfulness, peacefulness, and passivity.  There were to be no oaths:  Yea or Nay was to be enough.  There were to be no ceremonies of honour or courtesy-titles among men:  the hat was to be taken off to no one, and all were to be addressed in the singular, as Thou and Thee.  War and physical violence were unlawful, and therefore all fighting and the trade of a soldier.  Injuries to oneself were to be borne with patience, but there was to be the most active energy in relieving the sufferings of others, and in seeking out suffering where it lurked.  The sick and those in prison