  Fell’s views about female spiritual authority are best understood in the context of her wider religious beliefs. Above all, Fell embraces the Quaker notion that every human being has the “Light of Christ” within them and that this light is the Second Coming of Christ in the flesh (cf. Bruyneel 2010, 6–7; Bruyneel 2015, 107–8; Donawerth and Lush 2018, 11–13). According to the Quaker philosophy, all human beings are capable of attaining salvation provided that they turn their minds to the divine light. This universalism concerning salvation, and the Quaker view that everyone is capable of discerning fundamental religious truths for themselves, had notable implications for early Quaker practice. The Quakers believe that Christ is equally manifest in everyone and that God is “no respecter of persons” (Acts 10:34). From early on, the Quakers enacted this belief by taking a collaborative approach to prayer meetings. They did not appoint a single authoritarian preacher, “set up to teach them, it may be thirty or forty years together” (Fell 1667b, 86), but rather members would wait in silence till someone felt the light stir within. A guiding principle, Fell says, was that no-one should “strive for Mastery” but everyone should “esteem others better than themselves” (Fell 1710, 55). In their day-to-day interactions with social superiors, Quaker men would not remove their hats, and Quaker women would not curtsey. They refused to take oaths (such as the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy) and they did not use deferential titles. This lack of outward submission led some critics to accuse Quakers of “levelling all conditions” and ignoring social hierarchies between magistrates and people, husbands and wives, and masters and servants (Collier 1657, 12).