Phoebe Palmer diary (1847):

After class, went to see Mrs. Pillow, who has lately returned from the residence (of months I believe) among the “Shakers.” She had become so far deluded, during her residence with them, that she renounced all earthly obligations to her husband and family, and the pursuasions of a kind husband were unavailing, in urging her return. His only alternative was to take out a writ, and demand her person by law.

O, how dangerous is the least departure from the Written Word. A dependence on revelations or anything not fully sanctioned,–who can tell where the evil of such a dependence may end? I urged the authority of the plain Written Word, relative to the duties which she had renounced, and she informed me that the Shaking Quakers had received superior light in reference to these subjects, and revelations in connection with them, which the “Children of this world” (of which she regards me as being one) could not apprehend.

I assured her that if they gained this superior light by adding their revelations to make up the amount of God’s requirements by the testimony of the Scriptures themselves, they were condemned. The volume of revelation being closed, God had now declared, “If any man shall add to the words of this Book, God shall add to him the plagues written in this Book, or, if any man shall take away from the words of this Book, God shall take away his part out of the book of life,” etc. And, no prophecy of the Scripture being of any private interpretation, I conceived it to be impossible that they should have light on the Scriptures which any other disciple of Jesus might not have.

I spent perhaps an hour, with seemingly but little profit, in urging Mrs. P. to the importance of keeping close to the revealed will of God, as recorded in the Bible, with perhaps little other benefit than that of driving her to the conclusion that she must have required something beside Scripture, in bringing her to embrace such a faith. I left, deeply convinced of the danger of stepping aside, in the smallest degree, from the Written Word, assured that such a remove, however small, is getting on Satan’s ground,—just where he claims as his right, the privilege of carrying us away with every wind of doctrine.