Which way of
manifesting his will unto many other gracious privileges it had, above
that which in after ages came in place of it, had this added, that it
brought with it unto the man to whom it was made, a preservation against
all doubt and hesitancy, and a full assurance both who the author was,
and how far his intent and meaning reached. We who are their offspring
ought, as St. Chrysostom tells us, so to have demeaned ourselves, that
it might have been with us as it was with them, that we might have had
no need of writing, no other teacher but the spirit, no other books but
our hearts, no other means to have been taught the things of God."
That the spirit of God, as described by Thomas Beaven and the venerable
John Hales, was the great instructor or enlightener of man during the
period we are speaking of, the Quakers believe, from what they conceive
to be the sense of the holy scriptures on this subject. For in the first
place, they consider it as a position, deducible from the expressions of
Moses[33], that the spirit of God had striven with those of the
antediluvian world. They believe, therefore, that it was this spirit
(and because the means were adequate, and none more satisfactory to them
can be assigned) which informed Cain, before any written law existed,
and this even before the murder of his brother, that[34] "if he did
well, he should be accepted; but if not, sin should lie at his door.
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