To Friends Everywhere: It is with joy that I present to the public again, after nearly two centuries out of print, Job Scott’s Remarks upon the Knowledge of the Lord, the Only True God. You can now find this essay in Western Friend’s online library.
The thesis of this essay, numbering almost 25,000 words, is that there is a “saving knowledge” to be had, even in this lifetime, by men and women who seek, welcome, and accept the salvation offered by Christ. This saving knowledge is not to be gotten by our own efforts, or righteousness, or cleverness, or persistence in concentration or prayer, and neither by our intellectually accepting certain teachings or doctrines, but rather by patient, silent waiting on God, who alone, by the Holy Spirit of God working in the soul, begins this work, continues it, and, if not refused and rejected, finishes it. The man or woman in whom this work takes place may be of any faith tradition.
Scott’s teaching is demonstrably one in spirit with the teachings and exhortations of George Fox, Isaac Penington, William Penn, and Robert Barclay on the same topic, but more painstakingly worked out in its implications. In these Remarks, the mature Scott (who evidently wrote it during the last five years of his short life, 1751-1793) refers to the testimony only of persons credibly believed to have experienced “saving knowledge” of God; namely, Biblical writers, and, implicitly, himself. When he argues against exponents of contrary beliefs, he does not name them or cite their works, but simply identifies them by a word, for example, “the imputarians.”
Scott’s essay concludes with a twenty-one paragraph section, “On Perseverance.” Persevere, Friends, persevere in your walk in the Light of Christ! Stay close to your Shepherd, by whatever name your Shepherd instructs you to call Him or Her! ~~~
– John Jeremiah Edminster, Stillwater Monthly Meeting, Ohio Yearly Meeting (Conservative)