George Keith

George Keith c.1638-1716, Scottish preacher. Joining the Quakers c.1663, he was closely associated with Robert Barclay, George Fox, and other influential Friends. Shortly after his arrival in America (1684) he became the leader of a separate faction known as Christian Quakers, for which he was denounced by William Penn in 1692. Keith returned to England where, in 1700, he was ordained a priest in the Anglican Church. He was again in America (1702-4), preaching and baptizing. His journeys in the colonies are recorded in his Journal of Travels from New Hampshire to Caratuck (1706).

Keith, George (c.1638–1716), Scottish clergyman, came to America (1684) and became headmaster of the William Penn Charter School (1689). At first he agreed with the Quakers, but his differences with them on such points as the Inner Light, and his contentious manner, caused him to be denounced by Penn (1692). Keith returned the attack in The Deism of William Penn and His Brethren (1699), and formed a strong separatist party of Christian Quakers (Keithians). His Exhortation and Caution to Friends (1693) is said to be the first antislavery statement printed in the colonies. In 1700 he joined the Anglican Church, into which he took his followers, traveling widely throughout the colonies in 1702–4. Of this later period he left a record in A Journal of Travels from New‐Hampshire to Caratuck (1706).

Keith, George (c.1638–1716), ‘Christian Quaker’. He trained for the Presbyterian ministry, but in 1663 became a Quaker. He went to America in 1684, as Surveyor General of the colony of East Jersey. He was critical of much that he considered lax in the discipline and teaching of the American Quakers and of their belief in the ‘sufficiency of thy light within’; when disowned by them he gathered followers whom he called ‘Christian Quakers’. He returned to England in 1693, conformed to the C of E in 1700, and was one of the first missionaries sent to America by the SPG.