were separatists. William Bradford, the printer of his ‘Appeal’ to the ‘yearly meeting,’ was sent to prison. Keith and his friends, calling themselves ‘Christian quakers,’ held their own ‘yearly meeting’ at Burlington on 7 Sept. Fresh adherents came to them from the Mennonite settlers in Pennsylvania. After various wrangles, a new court, presided over by Jenings, sat at Philadelphia from 9 to 12 Dec., when Keith and others were condemned in a fine (not exacted) for personalities against Lloyd, and for denying the magistrates' right to arm the Indians in self-protection, and to employ hired force against privateers; a position which shows the influence of Mennonite tenets. To the same influence may be ascribed a collective ‘Exhortation & Caution to Friends against buying or keeping of Negroes,’ issued by the Keith party on 13 Oct. 1693, and apparently the earliest quaker protest against slavery.
The controversy reached London. To allay it an authorised statement of Christian doctrine, drawn up by George Whitehead [q. v.], was issued in 1693; a shorter statement was presented to parliament in December of that year. The influence of Keith's views is seen in the minutes of the Aberdeen ‘quarterly meeting,’ which record on 9 Sept. 1693 the establishment of ‘a consolatory repast (as among the primitive Christians) from house to house.’ Keith came to London in 1694, attending the ‘yearly meeting,’ which was held on 3 May and adjourned to 11 June, when fruitless efforts were made to end the division. At length, on 15 May 1695, Keith, till he should make public amends, was disowned by the ‘yearly meeting,’ not ‘for his doctrinal opinions, but for his unbearable temper and carriage’ (Barclay, Inner Life, p. 375), and for his refusal to withdraw his charges against Philadelphia quakers.
Keith, on his part, disowned the ‘yearly meeting.’ He obtained a meeting-house at Turners' Hall, Philpot Lane, Fenchurch Street, which had been vacated by general baptists in June 1695. Here, while retaining the quaker name, garb, and speech, he administered baptism and the Lord's Supper. His meeting-house was thronged; his sermons were continuous attacks upon the orthodoxy of quakers, especially of Penn, whom he accused of deism. From time to time he published ‘narratives’ of his proceedings at Turners' Hall. In 1698 and 1699 he went on controversial tours among the quakers in the provinces. At Bristol, in August 1699, he was threatened with the law if he entered the meeting-house, though he promised to make no disturbance. On 5 May 1700 he preached a ‘farewell sermon’ at Turners' Hall, giving his reasons for conforming to the established church. He was at once ordained by Henry Compton (1632–1713) [q. v.], bishop of London, and preached his first sermon as an Anglican clergyman on 12 May at St. George's, Botolph Lane, Lower Thames Street. Sewel notes as remarkable that he sometimes preached in a surplice. He continued to make tours in order to denounce quakerism, visiting Bristol and Colchester in 1700 and 1701; he claims to have led five hundred quakers to conform. His last ‘narrative’ of proceedings at Turners' Hall is dated 4 June 1701. His successor in the use of the meeting-house was Joseph Jacob [q. v.]
In 1702 Keith returned to America as one of the first missionaries sent out by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (incorporated 1701). A curious account is given by Richardson of Keith's visit to Lynn, Massachusetts, where, in broad Scotch, he called upon the quakers ‘in the queen's name’ to return to ‘good old mother church.’ His mission, which barely lasted two years and a half, was signally successful, especially in Maryland, and with presbyterians even more than with quakers. He returned to England about the end of 1704; his age (about sixty-five) probably unfitting him for further travel. In February 1705 he appears as Wednesday morning lecturer at Allhallows, Lombard Street. Soon afterwards he was presented by Archbishop Tenison to the rectory of Edburton, Sussex. He visited the Bristol quakers again in 1706. Two quakers testified against him on two successive Sundays in 1707, at Fulkin, in his own parish. He published nothing after 1711; from that time he was bedridden, and was crippled with rheumatism. The living was so small that he had to sell his books, but he obtained less than 10l. for them. He died at Edburton on 27 March 1716, aged about seventy-seven. Not much reliance can be placed on the alleged statement of one Richard Hayler, to the effect that on his deathbed he wished he had died when he was a quaker. The date of his wife's death is not ascertained; she was living in March 1694. Keith's will (dated 28 Oct. 1710) was published after his death.
The bibliography of Keith's publications fills twenty-three pages of Smith's catalogue; six more are given to the Keithian controversy. Valuable, as precursors of Barclay's ‘Apology,’ are:
- ‘Immediate Revelation,’ &c., 1668, 4to; and
- ‘The Universall Free Grace of the Gospell,’ &c. [Amsterdam], 1671, 4to. Perhaps the ablest specimen of his mere polemics, accentuated by a galling title, is
- ‘The Deism of William Penn and his Brethren,’ 1699, 8vo. Keith's criticism of the ‘Apology,’
