SCRIPTURE TRUTHS DEMONSTRATED, IN THIRTY-TWO SERMONS, OR DECLARATIONS OF STEPHEN CRISP

Editor: David Johnson

Format: A4, Downloadable PDF

Description: 

How do we like the government of satan? I hope we do none of us like it.” A modern reader of Stephen Crisp’s 1691 sermon, “The Kingdom of God Within,” reports having his heart penetrated by these words when, enraged by the evil deeds of his secular government, he’d at first imagined calling it satanic, but then realized that Crisp was pointing not to any outward satanic government, but the inward one that kept us all dancing around like puppets, playing on our fears, lusts and passions — passions like the rage that was then directing his anger toward the secular government!

Crisp’s next words were confessional: “It was so with me.” This humility and candor charmed our modern reader, making him eager to hear whatever else Crisp might have to say. Stephen Crisp (c. 1628-1692) likewise charmed an anonymous non-Quaker contemporary, who followed him about London during the last five years of his life, keeping a stenographic record of his sermons at Quaker meeting houses, of which these thirty-two were published in 1694. Reprints followed, such as the 1787 Philadelphia publication Scriptural Truths Demonstrated, which modern Quaker author David Johnson (A Quaker Prayer Life, 2013; Jesus, Christ and Servant of God: Meditations of the Gospel According to John, 2017; The Workings of the Spirit of God Within: The Offices of Christ, 2019; Surrendering into Silence: Quaker Prayer Cycles, 2020) has edited for modern readers, adding scriptural citations. The New Foundation Fellowship now offers it to readers as a downloadable PDF file.

Stephen Crisp is also remembered today for his allegorical A Short History of a Long Journey from Babylon to Bethel, a kind of Quaker’s Pilgrim’s Progress which, unlike Bunyan’s more famous work, allows for a seeker’s spiritual perfection even in this life. Crisp’s sermons, like A Short History, glow with optimism and joy over an all-loving God’s will to forgive and heal sin, and the ever-living Christ’s call to every man and woman to abandon the vain attachments that stand in the way of their salvation to eternal life.