In his book Crewdson criticized the American Quaker, Elias Hicks (1748–1830), who considered "obedience to the light within" to be the most important principle of worship and who regarded the Bible as a "dead letter" unless read "under the regulating influence of the spirit of God".

The matter was discussed at the 1835 London Yearly Meeting and a Visiting Committee was appointed to investigate and seek the reconciliation of members there.

[2] There Gurney spoke, upholding the supremacy of Scripture, but he also stressed the "true soundness of Friends' views in regard to silent meetings".

He also declared that if Friends were to "give way in our meetings for worship to any ministry except that which flows immediately from the Lord's anointing we should suffer loss.

The discord was effectively determined when Crewdson tendered his resignation from the Hardshaw East Monthly Meeting,[7] this being accepted on 15 December 1836, along with those of 38 of his supporters.

[9] Crewdson's daughter Margaret (1808-1864) had married a fellow-Quaker, Henry Waterhouse, in 1832,[10] and they, like her father, resigned from Hardshaw East Monthly Meeting in 1836.

[14] They incorporated into their worship baptism and taking the Lord's Supper, which had been rejected by Quakers as rituals that obstructed the relationship between the worshipper and God.

[17] It has been suggested that A Beacon to the Society of Friends was twenty years ahead of its time and that by the 20th century some Quaker evangelicals had reached a position close to that of Crewdson in the 1830s.