(Allan Gravely’s Master’s Thesis of 1982)
This book is the story of a forgotten group of people who were hungering for God in the approximate years of 1643-1656. The English people read their 1611 King James Authorized Bibles and saw God’s power in the first century church. They begged Him to “do it again.” They wanted to see spiritual gifts and apostles. Where were they in their generation? (Judges 6:13) Hundreds found no reality in the Roman or English church, so they simply met in open fields. Founder of Pennsylvania, William Penn, “stated that the ‘rise and degeneracy’ of the Puritan movement occasioned many to leave ‘…all visible churches and societies…they wandered up and down as sheep without a shepherd, and as doves without their mates, seeking their beloved.’ ”1 Large numbers were absorbed into the Quaker movement. The large outpouring of religious pamphlets also fanned the flames of desire for “the real deal.”
Many of these were so sincere in seeking God, that they became known as the Seekers. America’s Roger Williams, founder of Rhode Island and father of religious toleration, was himself a Seeker. Some of his ideas and those of others of the time bordered on extremism, but adherents were ardent in their hunger for reality, not a form of religion. This ardor was costly for Williams. He was banned from the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the winter. Rhode Island became a haven for free thinkers.
The Seekers attracted my husband’s attention in the 1970s when he had to choose a topic for his Master’s thesis at the University of Alabama. In those days with no Internet, he relied on interlibrary loan and research of others to put together a history of an obscure yet influential group of believers. I was home extremely occupied with our four preschoolers in University housing and could not wrap my mind around why it took so long to finish that thesis so that we could move on with our lives.
Fast forward about thirty-five years… in 2015, after my bleeding stroke or subarachnoid aneurysm, I had some extra time to sit at our computer and completely retype the old Master’s thesis. Our printer friend had told us that he could simply scan the original type-written document into Microsoft Word, but it didn’t work. Thus, I finally really read what my husband had written and a professional typist had typed on an electric typewriter long years ago. I was struck with the sincerity of the English people in their search for Biblical truth.
Allan was able to publish this new book at no cost since he did his own formatting. It is available on Amazon and Kindle. It is our hope that God will use this little book for His purposes. Much labor lies behind it.
Notes
1. Penn’s statement is quoted in William c. Braithwaite’s The Beginnings of Quakerism, 2nd ed., revised by Henry J. Cadbury (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1955), p. 25. Quoted in Allan Gravely’s Roger Williams and the Search for the New Apostles. (North Charleston: Create Space, 2016), p. 9.