Phil D.
ὁ βαπτιστὴς
Now, I know not whether the sect which hath appeared in our days under the name of Quakers, be not upon many accounts the worst of hereticks; for in Quakerism which has by some been called, the “sink of all heresies,” we see the vomit cast out in the by-past ages, by whose kennels of seducers, lick’d up again for a new digestion, and once more exposed for the poisoning of mankind; though it pretends unto light, yet by the means of that very pretence it leaves the bewildred souls of men “in chains unto darkness,” and gives them up to the conduct of an Ignis Fatuus [foolish fire]: but this I know, they have been the most venomous of all to the churches of America.
[…] Now having done with the Quakers, let it not be misinterpreted, if into the same chapter we put the inconveniences which the churches of New England have also suffered from the Anabaptists; albeit they have infinitely more of Christianity among them than the Quakers, and have indeed been useful defenders of Christianity against the assaults of the Quakers; yea, we are willing to acknowledge for our brethren as many of them as are willing to be so acknowledged.
[Cotton Mather, Magnalia Christi Americana: Or the Ecclesiastical History of New England; from its first Planting in the Year 1620, Unto the Year of our Lord 1698, (London: T. Parkhurst, 1702), 2:522, 531.]
