A Key (Penn)/Section IV
OF THE HOLY SPIRIT OF GOD AND ITS OFFICE, WITH RESPECT TO MAN, AND OF THE MINISTRY
[edit]Perversion 8: The Quakers assert the Spirit of God to be the immediate Teacher, and there is no other means now to be useful, as ministry, ordinances, etc.
Principle: They never spoke such language, and their daily practice confutes the reflection. They never denied the use of means, such means as are used in the life and power of God, and not from man's will and innovation. They cannot own that to be a Gospel ministry that is without a Gospel spirit, or that such can be sent of God who are not taught of God, or that they are fit to teach others what regeneration and the way to heaven are who have never been born again themselves, or that such can bring souls to God who are themselves strangers to the baptism of fire and the Holy Ghost.
This unexperienced and lifeless ministry is the only ministry that the people called Quakers cannot own and receive, and therefore cannot maintain. For the ministry and the ministers that are according to Scriptures, they both own, respect and delight in, and are ready to assist and support in their service to God.
They deny all false means: Evangelical means and order they love to keep, for they diligently assemble themselves to wait upon God, to enable them to worship Him, where they both pray and prophesy, one by one, as prepared and moved in their hearts by His Spirit, and as anything is revealed to them. Otherwise they are silent before the Lord. Nor are they without spiritual songs, making melody in their hearts to God their Redeemer, by the same Holy Ghost, as often as they are comforted and moved by it, as was the primitive practice.