=====[wk 5]
Conclusion
This
conclusion explores three topics. First, a theme which emerged in the
historical section but which was not a prime focus for the contemporary study
is completed. Secondly, the writer attempts some unabashed speculation on the
negative implications of American society for the future of Quakerism. And
thirdly, he reflects upon Quakerism's possible significance for the future of
American society.
Completing
a Theme: Local Autonomy Versus Central Hegemony Today
The
historical chapters of this study traced out a surprising tendency for central
control to supersede the sovereignty of the monthly meeting. This accretion was
unexpected, given the core Quaker idea that divine guidance is found in the
religious experience of the gathered local community. Our historical pages
limited their attention to early growth in England. Are there any resonances of
tension between local and central authority to be found in contemporary
American Quakerism?
There
are resonances. The best way to understand them is to recall that, unlike
British Friends, American Quakers did not suffer widespread persecution in
their early years. Hence, they felt little pressure to establish a
superstructure as a defense against the government. The American version of
London Meeting for Sufferings began only in the 1750s and never wielded the
power of its much earlier British counterpart. There was no yearly meeting
bureaucracy, no paid staff until well into the twentieth century.
Since
the historical English pressures toward central leadership were lacking, the
emergence of centripetal tendencies had to await the develop‑
109
ment of the twentieth
century yearly meeting bureaucracy. The greater efficiency and impact of
central preparation of religious books and central coordination of social
welfare programs and protest in contemporary American society has meant growth
of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting budget to something over one million dollars
per year.' Friends with special interest in the matters covered by the Yearly
Meeting budget gravitate towards yearly meeting committees and projects and
spend proportionately less time on their own monthly meetings. This emphasis
leads to cleavage. One Friend explains:
Interest turns someone into
what we call a "Yearly Meeting Friend:' Volunteers and employees of Yearly
Meeting tend, therefore, to be the most committed, the most "far out"
on issues. Their commitment makes them strong on leadership. The real tension
between their actions and the more conservative leanings of many monthly
meetings, where less socially aware Friends tend to be found, comes to be a
sore point.
In
practice, complaints from monthly meetings often concentrate upon the autonomy
of the Yearly Meeting staff and its apparent lack of sensitivity to the
reluctance of monthly meetings to endorse its acts. Unhappy Friends also claim
that the large Yearly Meeting budget for social welfare programs drains local
money to the Yearly Meeting with the result that the local projects of monthly
meetings are often overshadowed. (Those who are interested in social welfare
matters often tend to follow the money to the Yearly Meeting where others of
like conviction are already gathered.) One of the modes of making this local
unhappiness felt is annual foot-dragging over increases in the Yearly Meeting budget.
As a
balance to this dissatisfaction, even Friends who are saddened by expansion and
tendencies of what they term the "Philadelphia Vatican" comment upon
the value to all meetings of the central services provided. First Day school
materials and media coverage of Friends public testimonies at the Yearly
Meeting level are common instances of this counterweight.
Yearly
Meeting leaders, sensitive to the delicacy of the balance, have made notable
efforts to meet valid criticism by adjusting central procedures. Public actions
by the spirited members of the Peace Committee have been kept under tighter
rein in response to local criticisms. For example, letters of complaint to
foreign heads of state must now be approved by Representative Meeting or its
Executive Committee before they can be dispatched. Yearly Meeting staff members
have become more alert to the need to prepare the way for programs they are
interested in by visiting monthly meetings, informing them of their intended
activities, and obtaining their blessing. However, in spite of many such
efforts to temper central
110
autonomy in recent years,
unhappiness in monthly meetings continues.
In sum,
the centrifugal genius of Quaker tradition is in tension with the centripetal
force of central effectiveness. But the tension seems a healthy one which
increases central accountability, expands communication, and keeps individual
monthly meetings from gradually drifting into an isolation which could weaken
the cohesion of the Religious Society of Friends. At least for the moment,
there is a dynamic tension which bodes well for the Quaker future.
Speculation:
The Future of Quakerism
A topic
of serious concern among members of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting is the
significant decline in the number of adult members. In the twenty years between
1960 and 1980, the community lost adult members at a rather steady annual rate
just under one-half percent a year—a decline of almost ten percent over twenty
years. When Friends add to this decrease the problem that many of the 11,000
adult members in 1980 neither attended meeting for worship nor responded to
monthly meeting requests for financial support, they become fearful that the
Society of Friends in the Philadelphia region is in an unhealthy condition.2
Friends wonder why.
Our
visits to meeting for business at various monthly meetings frequently made us
ask whether we had selected a bad night. Attendance of even 10 percent of the
members of the meeting began to seem quite acceptable after a few such visits.
A number of Friends volunteered that they were disturbed by the paucity of
participants in local meetings for business. This attendance record contrasted
vividly with that of Representative Meeting where at least 70 percent of the
members could be relied upon to be present each month.
In
reflecting on possible explanations for the contrasting attendance of these two
groups, we found our thoughts moving paradoxically towards the great strengths
of Quaker decision making. We have already noted that out of a united decision
also comes a high degree of obligation to
carry out the decision and
make it work. Every participant either actively favored the proposal or, at
least, could have stopped the action but did
not. The price one pays for
attending a meeting for business is that one leaves with new obligations. The
individual cannot claim to be merely a disinterested observer.
If one
adds to this obligation the presupposition in Quaker decisions that each
participant is willing to start from the viewpoint of the group's
111
good and not from a personal
perspective, one suddenly comes face-to-face with an even broader price
demanded of the participant. Each person must make a fundamental shift from
the atomic individuality which marks American society and embrace a
communitarian starting point.
Could
it not be that Quakerism is a victim of the general culture? People socialized
into the atomism (or individualism) which has been fundamental to Western
thought since the rise of liberalism need special abilities if they are
successfully to shift into a subculture which expects a communitarian
self-understanding. The Quaker who mistakenly reduces Friends decision making
to democracy sees no advantage in the extra time taken by "quaint"
procedures. "Why not just vote and get it over with?" is the sort of
question sometimes asked. The individual who must ask this sort of question is
approaching Quakerism from the outside, from a thought-world alien to its very
foundations.
Such a
person neither accepts the communitarian self-understanding nor the
obligations which the decisions of the meeting for business place upon the
individual. The best way to avoid the obligations is by avoiding the meetings.
The absent Friend does not incur the burden of the Friend who is present and
who therefore is personally responsible for the decision.
An
individual opting for absence has plenty of support from social trends. Fewer
Friends are self-employed and more women have full-time positions in the
workforce in addition to family responsibilities. Families move frequently and
tend to be less interested in any communities larger than their own family
unit. In other words, the economic and social trends in our individual-centered
society provide a constant, pervasive impetus towards thinking of a
communitarian woridview as an impossible burden.
If our
speculation is right, it explains why we found the Quaker business procedure so
effectively utilized in most of the meetings we visited. Those in attendance
were generally capable of entering the com-munitarian thought-world and
accepting the obligations the meeting was to impose. Friends unable to shift
into that world and to bear its burdens tended not to come. Put another way,
one reason the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting faces declining membership
statistics is that it is faithful to its heritage, a heritage that more and
more of its members are incapable of sharing.
Such an
explanation fits rather well with the responses we received in casual
encounters with individuals who had given up their Quakerism. These people
consistently spoke highly of the social testimonies of Friends and of Quaker
tolerance for diversity of belief within the community. But they revealed
puzzlement, boredom, and irritation when the conversation turned to the
"peculiar" Quaker approach to decision making.
Supposing
for the moment that our analysis is correct, the avenues open to Friends are
rather limited. First, they could take the tack followed by groups like the Old
Colony Mennonites who, when their culture was being eroded by the world,
required members to divorce themselves from contact with worldly life and to
immerse themselves instead in the Mennonite community Given the Quaker genius
for full involvement in American life, such a prospect of segregation seems out
of the question.
A
second approach might be to emphasize, in the education of both adult members
and of the children of members, the possibility of "nonatomic"
starting points for human life. Instead of focusing on themselves as individual
atoms, as units basically separate from the world about them, Friends would be
taught to see themselves fundamentally as participants in larger communities,
and only secondarily as atomic individuals. Friends grammar and high schools,
study groups, and First Day schools are all obvious places for explicitly
exploring the implications for human life of a communitarian
self-understanding. Surely a religious society which includes in its
membership a notable percentage of people committed to counterculture
lifestyles should find it easy to carry its critical analysis of American
society to a level deep enough for the limitations of atomic self-understanding
to be perceived. In contrast, the Quaker com-munitarian presuppositions might
be offered as a sound alternative world view.
A third
mode of confronting the problem might be to reemphasize the importance of
religious experience in Quaker life. The gathered meeting for worship could be
cultivated once again through special attention in Quaker magazines, more
emphasis upon religious retreats where private and group worship might be
deepened, and other attempts at consciousness raising.
Simultaneously,
Friends charged with interviewing applicants for monthly meeting membership
might become much more sensitive as to whether the candidate values the
religious experience in Quaker life and can understand and rate highly the
gathered condition of a meeting. All too often, such matters may be considered
inappropriate areas for inquiry; and committees which screen applicants may
content themselves with the assumption that the prospective Friend finds Quaker
social testimony or fellowship attractive.
Similar
questions might also be asked in making decisions about whether to retain
inactive resident members on the rolls of the monthly meeting. Retaining as
members virtually all who have not explicitly asked that their names be removed
from the list—the practice of many monthly meetings—tends to reduce membership
to a meaningless level; one can remain a Friend even if one's participation in
the community's life is limited to occasional inquiries into the state of one's
grandfather's grave. Honestly recognizing that such individuals are not full
members might underscore the importance for Quaker life of the shared religious
experience which gathers individual members beyond atomic existence into a
unity. Once again, the experiential root of Quakerism might receive the
prominence it deserves.
Speculation:
Quakerism's Message for the American Future
A
number of the writer's confreres in graduate school, upon hearing that this
study dealt with Quaker decision making, presumed that he would find the Quaker
process to be a variant on the unanimous consent of the United States Senate or
the tendency of United Nations committee chairmen to declare that "there
being no objection, the committee approves the following:' Some Friends suggested
the same conclusions, often pointing to the United Nations in particular as a
secular example of Quaker method.
The
author's research has convinced him that almost exactly the opposite is true.
In the United States Senate, unanimous consent is typically a device for
approving matters which arouse no one's opposition and is used as a method of
expedition. Unanimity thus means that the matter is trivial or
noncontroversial. The members of the Senate are not called upon to change from
the atomic vantage point of their own and their constituents' interests to a
community-based perspective. They simply affirm that the matter does not
adversely affect their set of interests.
In the
United Nations, unanimous consent is very frequently a way for nations to avoid
going on record. By making arrangements behind the scenes, nations reach a
compromise inconsistent with the official formulations of their individual
foreign policies but seen as advantageous, here and now, to their national
interests. By the subterfuge of failure to vote, they can preserve their
officially formulated positions, yet serve their immediate national needs.
Such a procedure may imitate some aspects of Quaker decision making, but it
lacks both the change from national to community interest and the commitment to
participate in achieving the agreed goal which are central to the Friends
process
Another
area suggested from time to time as an instance of the Friends style of
decision is the deliberations of the corporate board. Although we do not wish
to argue that such instances never occur, we must suggest that many apparent
similarities between the Quaker style of decision making and those of the
board room are only coincidental. We recall a Friend who commented
enthusiastically about a Philadelphia corporation he
knew which reached unanimous
decisions at its board meetings with only rare exceptions. However, another
Friend, a member of a number of
corporate boards, remarked:
Sure, corporations' boards
of directors almost always agree. That's just good business. You pick a
management team and then you back them unanimously until some major segment of
the board is dissatisfied enough to want to replace the team. Until you want to
make that major change, you would only be weakening management unnecessarily by
voting no or no confidence. So, when you vote yes, it has little in common with
Quaker unity. This kind of yes just means you haven't enough votes to win yet.
In
short, apparent parallels to Friends decision making seem to fall far short
because they do not demand of the participant the characteristic Quaker change
of viewpoint or burden the individual with the Quaker sense of obligation to
make the decision work out successfully. In a fundamental sense, the supposed
parallels differ from Friends decisions because the former do not presuppose
that participants are in community.
Our
speculation thus raises a fundamental issue. Individualized, atomic man cries
out for community. He or she complains because of the inability to participate
in a satisfying way in decision making that affects his or her life.5
But individualized, atomic man is incapable of community because of the
inability to surrender the individual-focused starting point which has been
fundamental to Western culture since the begin-fling of liberalism.6
Therefore all attempts by a person whose socialization has been locked into
the atomic thought-world to achieve the community longed for are doomed to
fail, doomed to imitate the externals of a participation based upon communion
without ever quite attaining the communion itself that would transform those
externals into reality.
Roberto
Unger, Harvard political philosopher, argues forcefully that now is the time
for a "total criticism;' a critique of social theory which would not rest
content to challenge parts of the present thought-world but would attempt to
challenge that world's very roots. The outcome would
be a
turning away from liberalism's atomic man so that tomorrow's man could once
again escape the isolation of viewpoint basic to liberalism and find a fuller
identity as part of an "organic group" whose good and goals would be
the initial point of reference? Tomorrow's world of thought would go beyond
liberalism in order to embrace a new level of community.
Our
speculation leaves both Quakerism and the American future in doubt. If the
American society becomes even more deeply mired in an atomic world view, we can
expect the number of people capable of living in both an American and a Quaker
universe to diminish gradually and constantly. Eventually, this could spell the
end to such Quaker units as Philadelphia Yearly Meeting.
On the
other hand, if the hunger for community is strong and growing, might not the
number of Americans who are ready for a group such as Friends be expected to
increase? In that case, Friends would still face the great challenge of helping
these people to enter the Quaker experience deeply enough to be able to change
their basic thought-world from the atomic to the communitarian. But, if Friends
are successful, groups like the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting might be the
vanguard of a new revolution.
And so
we conclude with Quakerism in an ambiguous state. Will the Religious Society of
Friends become a victim of the atomic society or a beacon drawing that society
to the community which its members crave?
Alfred North Whitehead remarks: "Profound
flashes of insight remain ineffective for centuries, not because they are
unknown, but by reason of dominant interests which inhibit reaction to that
type of generality. The history of religion is the history of the countless
generations required for interest to attach itself to profound ideas18
Centuries
ago, George Fox found on Pendle Hill an experience that spoke to his condition.
Is it too much to suppose that modern seekers might find in the Religious
Society of Friends the religious experience and worldview that would speak to
theirs?
Appendix A, Appendix B, Notes,
Bibliography
Appendix
A The Christian Tradition of Divine Guidance
Many a
Quaker whom the author has interviewed during research for this book has
suggested that the Friends decision process is something doubly miraculous; not
only does it achieve harmony without resorting to voting, it was virtually
revealed to George Fox and is unheard of elsewhere in the Christian tradition.
The harmony derived from disparate opinions may indeed qualify at times for a
miraculous label. However it is the purpose of this appendix to demonstrate
that Friends decision making is not a process which abruptly began with the
inspirations of George Fox but, instead, is an important example of a rich
tradition which has marked the Christian community from the days of the
Apostles and which especially flourished at the time Fox founded his movement.
Where, then, did early Quakers get their
extraordinarily practical theology of divine guidance? One source is Scripture.
Acts 15 recounts a church council at Jerusalem in
which the Apostles and the elders decided to send a letter to the Gentile
Christians freeing them from the obligation of circumcision. The letter
included the clause, "it has seemed good to the Holy Ghost, . . . and to
us. . . . " Robert Barclay's Anarchy of the Ranters focused on this
episode to explain Quaker
practice.2 -
Did George Fox simply read the Book of Acts,
meditate on its implications, and create the Quaker process? Hardly. Fox's
procedure was not nearly as singular in the mid-seventeenth century as it may
seem in the late-twentieth. An overview of the precursors of the Quaker method
will reveal the extent to which Quaker procedures were already in the air.
Medieval
Catholic Practice
Medieval
Catholic procedure is helpful for indicating how widespread was the expectation
that the Holy Spirit would be active in directing the outcome of
ecclesiastical decision making. For example, bishops were elected by the clergy
assigned to each cathedral (the "cathedral chapter"). At times
factions would vie for a majority of votes in a manner
119
which,
to put it mildly, was unedifying. As a corrective, the Third Lateran Council
(1170) decreed that in all the world's dioceses, the electors more noted for
their virtue, zeal, and disinterestedness—the sanior pars—must all vote
with the majority if the election was to be valid. Unanimity of the san-ior
pars was taken as a sign of divine endorsement of the elected candidate.3
The
example illustrates the early theoretical conflict between modern majority rule
and the more primitive search for truths Canon law showed a dual allegiance. On
the one hand, everyone who was affected by a decision had a right to a voice
in its approval. This is the Justinian's maxim Quod omnes tangit ab omnibus
approbetur.5 Balancing this introduction of diverse interests
was an emphasis on the unity in truth which should prevail where the Spirit is
active. One device for fostering such unity without disenfranchising those with
a mere factional spirit was to demand that there be not merely a majority in
favor of a candidate, but a majority including all who constituted the sanior
pars.
The
same principle emerged elsewhere in canonical thought. When the well-being of
the whole diocesan corporation is in question, said the famous canonist
Zabarella (c. 1335-1417), the bishop cannot act alone; he must have
either the consent of the whole chapter or at least of its major et
sanior pars.6 This notion that God's will can be found in the
unanimity of the most upright members of a decision making body has been traced
through hundreds of years in the governance of the dioceses of Great Britain?
But the
flowering of medieval belief that the Spirit speaks in the unanimous actions of
a governing body is the theory of Church Councils. As medieval political
historian Brian Tierney has clearly demonstrated,8 the principles of
Conciliar theory in the fourteenth century derive directly from twelfth and
thirteenth century canon law. Nicholas of Cusa, a fifteenth century political
theorist and theologian, reflects the tension within that legal tradition
between majoritarian and unitarian approaches. On occasion, Cusa alleges that
the majority side always expresses the will of the SpiritY He, however, cannot
long remain satisfied with mere majority rule. In an attempted compromise of
systems, Cusa "insists that the minority formally endorse the decision of
the majority after the vote so as to produce the required unanimity especially
in the definition of doctrine "10
But then Cusa confronted a practical problem. He
was a member of the anti-papal Council of Basle (1431-1438). The majority voted
to hold a council of reunion with the Greeks at Avignon; but there was deep
disagreement by a minority of prelates (fifteen out of fifty-two present) whose
honest zeal for reunion made them, in Cusa's eyes, the sanior though far
minor pars.11 Cusa felt constrained to desert Basle and
endorse the papal side. The Council of Basle, in spite of its large majorities,
could not achieve the unity which is the mark of a true council. After all,
Cusa had written long before Basle that "on account of the unanimity on
which the authority of the acts of a council depends, we know that the Holy
Spirit, who is the spirit of union and harmony [concordantiae] has inspired
the council's decision.12 Conversely, "where there is dissent,
there is no council.
The
conciliar thought which Cusa enunciated so clearly, with its central emphasis
on how the will of God was to be found in the unity behind the decrees of
church councils, had direct impact on English parliamentary theory in the days
of Henry Viii's establishment of a national church. Parliament emerged as an
interim substitute for a worldwide church council and took on all the latter's
attributes. One of Henry's most prominent apologists, Christopher St. German,
wrote, "It cannot be thought that a Statute that is made by authority of
the whole Realm, as well as of the King and of the Lords Spiritual and
Temporal, as of all the commons, will recite a thing against the Truth:'14
Ecclesiastical historian George Hunston Williams sums up the argument:
"The nation ultimately, Parliament representatively, was in the Henrician
theory the King's body political and ecclesiastic as distinguished from
his body natural. St. German regarded Parliament so conceived as a national
mixed synod, guided by the Holy Spirit, and as such incapable of error, in
effect, infallible. The King in Parliament, as it were, can do no wrong."15
Because
of this approach, Anglicanism tended to consider Parliament as not only
national diet but national synod.16 One channel, therefore, by which
Catholic conciliar infallibility reached Fox's England would be the conciliar
rhetoric surrounding Parliament •17
The Anabaptist Tradition
An
altogether independent channel of transmission to Fox's England was the
nonmagisterial Protestant tradition, especially that of the Anabaptists.
Divine inspiration was introduced dramatically by Henry Pfeiffer and Thomas
Muntzer at Muhlhausen in 1525 when the two revolutionaries replaced the town
council with the so-called eternal council representative of the revolutionary
classes. Apparently, the people would elect pastors who in turn would
deliberate in a council. The council would express the truths the people held
but could not articulate.
This was to be an eschatological council, a Konzil
der Endzeit which would establish true church order as the final step prior
to the Second Coming of Christ. Although we do not know its decision making
procedures, it certainly was supposed to produce decisions guaranteed by the
Holy Spirit. Details are unclear since the eternal, council was overthrown after
only a few months and Muntzer and Pfeiffer, were beheaded by Landgrave Philip
of Hesse.
In
variant forms, the notion of an eschatological council continued to appear in
the Radical Reformation. In August 1527, two other Anabaptist leaders, John Hut
and John Denck, summoned a council (later termed the Martyrs' Synod) at
Augsburg to discuss immediate preparations for the Second Coming which they
hoped would occur on Pentecost Sunday the year following. Williams summed up
their expectations: "As once in the upper room in Jerusalem the first
apostolic council had convened and the flames of the Spirit had descended upon
the participants, so in the fullness of the dispensations, the Spirit would
come again in power, anointing the new apostles for the last days before the
millenium."18
Yet
another Anabaptist version of conciliar thought, exemplified by Baithasar Hubmaier
who taught at Nicolsburg in Moravia in 1527, was that individual local churches
may indeed err, but the universal church could not. Therefore he was ready to
submit to a truly universal council where the Spirit of God, which moved freely
in each redeemed person, could offset by its dynamic presence the partiality of
fleshly wills.
Finally,
we might note the principle of the Sitzerrecht or Lex Sedentium— the
belief much discussed among Anabaptists that the local community of the
faithful Christians would be inspired by the Holy Spirit when together its
members sought a common understanding of passages from Scripture.19
Interest in this approach to inspired interpretation of Scripture remained
alive in Anabaptist circles over the years.
We have
concentrated on Anabaptist traditions precisely because this is probably the
safest way to avoid being caught in a morass. The imme‑
diate origin of Quaker beliefs and practices has
been argued with much
vigor and little
satisfaction for generations. It is difficult to determine these origins just
because there are so many plausible candidates! Among
the
sects abounding in Britain just prior to Fox's time, a large number
reveal one or the other of the doctrines that
would appear in Quakerism. In general, what these sects have in common is that
they appealed to the
50 percent of the populace who could be labelled
masterless men and that they shared at least some Anabaptist roots, enough at
least so that the no‑
tion of divine inspiration
of the united community would be part of their religious world. In discussing
each group, we will emphasize the doctrines strongly affirmed by them which
were to become mainstays of Quaker belief.
Possible Anabaptist Channels
to Quaker Origins
Early Mystics
Quaker historians
have traced the list of the sixteenth century Anabaptist mystics who already
proclaimed the characteristic Quaker belief in direct inner communion of man
with God and used such "Quaker" terms as the Inward Light, Inward
Word, and Divine Seed° But they can allege no direct link between these writers
and George Fox. For example, William Braithwaite writes: "George Fox was
not a reader of books other than the Bible, nor a student of movements, and he
reveals in his writings very slight direct acquaintance with the formative
literature of mystical religion. This is true also of Dewsbury, Nayler, Howgil,
Burrough, and other early makers of Quakerism. 1121
Although
Rufus M. Jones has difficulty finding much evidence of direct influence in the
writings of these earliest Friends, it remains true that Judge Hotham, George
Fox's protector, wrote a life of Boehme. Hotham's brother Charles, also an
acquaintance of Fox, was Boehme's translator.
The Familists
A
second candidate for an Anabaptist channel to the Quakers is Henry Nicholas's
Family of Love or Familists. This group came to England late in the first half
of the sixteenth century and sprang momentarily into prominence again during
the Commonwealth. The community believed in an Inner Light and held strongly
that, contrary to Calvin and Luther, inner perfection could be attained by
every man. In addition to these central "Quaker" tenets, the
Familists foreshadowed Quakers in such particulars as their refusal to take
oaths, opposition to war and capital punishment, dislike of ceremonious
worship, preference for simple speaking, and marriage without an officiating
minister. Yet the Familists did practice water baptism and had a hierarchy of
rulers. Their exact mode of worship remains in doubt2
Although
many early Quaker recruits did in fact come from Familist backgrounds and some
unusual Familist doctrines (for example, the celestial flesh of Christ) appear
in the second generation of Quaker writing,
most of the beliefs Familists shared with Quakers
were also shared with General Baptists or with Seekers. There is no evidence
that George Fox had contact with Familists in the days of his own spiritual
searching but plenty of indication that his early spiritual homes were among
Baptists and Seekers. Church historian George Huntston Williams is certainly
right when he comments that morphologically the English Familists
represent a transitional stage between evangelical Anabaptism and the
completely nonsacramental Spiritualism of Quakerism." He may be overstating
his case, however, when he adds that "to a certain extent genetically"
the Familists led into Quakerism. William Braithwaite's observation that any
clear channel of Familist influence on Fox is "not yet discovered"
remains as true today as when Braithwaite wrote in 1912.23
The Seekers
A third
approach to Quaker genesis is that mysterious collection of silent worshippers
known as Seekers. Holding that no true Church existed in their age of
apostacy, they gathered to worship in silence and awaited new revelation. They
refused even the Anabaptist sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist until such
time as worthy ministers—men of apostolic calibre—should appear. There is
indication that some Seekers eventually doubted that the sacraments would be
needed even should the apostolic age be restored. Like other independent sects,
the Seekers opposed labelling the days of the week and months of the year by
their common names since these commemorated pagan deities. This, too, would
eventually be a Quaker testimony.
Further evidence of Seeker influence upon Quakers
is that the early name Friends took on themselves was Children of the Light, a
name in vogue among Seekers. Since George Fox spent much time among Seekers in
the period just before the foundation of Quakerism and gathered so many
converts from Seekers, it is not hard to see why Rufus Jones concludes that
Quaker worship procedures "apparently came from the societies of
Seekers—in the northern counties of England:' Arnold Lloyd goes further and
suggests that the probable source of the Quaker decision making process was
also a Seeker practice, although he provides no substantiation ?4
(General) Baptists,
Especially John Smyth
It is important to notice, however, that the
situation may not be as straightforward as it appears to be. The peculiar
title, Children of the Light, was not just a Seeker phrase; it also was in use
among Continental
124
Anabaptists. Thomas Edwards,
in his 1646 handbook of heresies, Gangraena, informed his readers that
in the years just after 1640, the "Seekers greatly increased, Independent
Baptists leaving their congregations; not only the people, but the
ministers:" Writing in the same year, Baillie affirmed that Spilsby, a
Baptist leader, "acknowledges, that many Baptists become Seekers. "125
Although it would appear that the misty origins of Seekerism were native
English, not Continental Baptist, by Fox's day the line between Baptist and
Seeker may have been very easy to cross. Both Seekers and Baptists held the
same doctrines, with the difference that Baptists practiced baptism and the
Lord's Supper, Seekers did without them at least until worthy apostles might be
raised up by God.
Such
similarities between the two sects explains why Fox found the soil so fertile
in both communities. His Journal records him preaching in 1647 and 1648
at various Baptist meetings. In 1649, he had a "loving" religious
discussion with the celebrated Baptist preacher Samuel Oates and others.
Steeplehouse—Fox's standard epithet for a church building—was not his own
invention but the common usage among Baptists prior to Fox. Appropriately,
William Braithwaite sees in the "broken" Baptist community at
Nottinghamshire which Fox encountered in 1647-48 "the channel along which
many of the Baptist influences which affected Quakerism probably came. "26
Rufus Jones urges that this same encounter "first supplied George Fox with
congenial religious fellowship and, under his leadership, developed into the
earliest Quaker congregation?7 In support of this view one can cite
such early sources as Ephraim Pagitt, Fox's contemporary, who wrote "the
Quaker is an upstart branch of the Anabaptists. 1128
It
would be good to underscore here that the (Ana)Baptists to which we have been
referring are the group known in England as General Baptists. They held the
Arminian notion that salvation was open to all men; opposing this view were the
Particular Baptists who maintained a true Calvinist notion of predestination:
only a few among earth's denizens were numbered among God's elect.
Nottinghamshire, where Fox made his first convert and formed his first
community, was the location of one of the two original communities of English
General Baptists, and the neighborhood was heavily blessed with Baptist
communities which owed their origins to the Baptist church founded by John
Smyth two generations previously or to churches in communion with Smyth's
group?9
John Smyth's Baptists are especially interesting.
They began in England, but persecution forced Smyth to lead part of the
community
125
from Gainsborough to
Amsterdam in 1607. His community, feeling very close in belief to Amsterdam's
Waterlander Mennonite Church, united with the Mennonites in 1615, although
maintaining separate services until 1639. This allegiance with the Mennonites
reinforced Smyth's own theological growth. A strongly spiritualist dimension of
the Waterlanders included disenchantment with prepared preaching baptism and
communion in favor of silent meditation together. Smyth's writings reveal the
language one would later find in Fox, that action was to be taken "for the
cleering of the truth" and "that the truth wee walk in may be
manifested' Worship was apparently to include much silence, spontaneous
speaking by any member when moved by the Spirit, the exclusion of
preestablished forms of worship such as reciting memorized prayers or even
reading Scripture as part of the service. Thus:
The Spirit is quenched by
silence when fit matter is revealed to one that sitteth by and he withholdeth
it in tyme of prophesying; the Spirit is quenched by sett formes of worship,
for therein the spirit is not at liberty to utter it self, but is bounded in.
. .; Saying set formes of worship by rote is quenching the Spirit; &
Reading sett formes or worship out of a book is quenching the Spirit; for in
the one the Spirit is not manifested but the strength of the memory, in the
other the matter is not brought out of the hart, but out of the book; & so
in neyther of them the Spirit is at liberty
The resemblance to a Quaker
meeting for worship is manifest.
Even
the mode of dealing with those who erred in their participation in the worship was
similar. In 1608 Smyth said, "If any thing doubtful or false be
delivered in tyme of spirituall worship it is to be examyned & censured
afterwards."30 Fox would write in 1659 "that no Friends
judge one another in meetings; but if any be moved to speak [to such,] to do it
after meeting in private."31
Smyth,
the father of English General Baptists, and his flock opposed going to law
against other members, opposed the taking of oaths, found the morality of war
dubious at best, urged the priority of the inward inspiration of God over the
outward scripture, and allowed that if any believed in Christ's "celestial
flesh," Smyth would not "refuse brotherhood with him.1132
This position by Smyth weakens considerably George Huntston Williams's argument
that the source of the spiritual flesh theology of Robert Barclay and George
Keith had to be the English Familists.33 In all these positions,
Smyth foreshadowed characteristic Quaker notions.
Even the idea that women
should be allowed to preach—a basic tenet
126
of Fox34—seems to
have started in the Baptist churches of Holland. It reached American Baptists
by 1636 and English Baptists by 1641
As far
as governance was concerned, Anabaptists generally believed in discipline
imposed by the community, for the community was a school where Christ was the
Master. In theory, at least, the Anabaptist pastors and other leaders were not
so powerful as officials of the magisterial reformation churches. Smyth added
a dimension, again important for Quakerism, that the hierarchical arrangement
of officers found among Presbyterians and other Amsterdam Baptists was dropped.
Instead, there were simply two kinds of officers: pastors—who could perform such
functions as teaching or governing—and deacons who worried about the practical
details of the church.
This
elimination of hierarchy among spiritual leaders had the practical effect of
giving the congregation (which elected them) true authority over its elders in
a way that had not been possible under a hierarchical structure ?6
English
Baptist communities added a variant to Smyth's two-level structure. Ministers
were not entrusted with the guidance of a single community but travelled
constantly. In practice, this seems to have diminished the authority of
ministers in local matters and enhanced the local deacons.
The
earliest Quaker communities of which we have clear record—those formed from
Westmoreland Seekers in 1652 and 1653—seem to have adopted the Baptist pattern.
Friends whose talent for preaching was singular were recognized and encouraged
to travel among the communities as unordained ministers; each local community
was governed by its own elders (overseers)7
Finally,
Barclay cites a tantalizing letter describing the business meeting as conducted
in Smyth's congregation. We learn that, although all those present "had
free liberty of voting decisively, and of debate;' yet "nothing must go by
number or plurality of voices, and there must be no moderator, or
prolocutor, for the order of their action. 1138 It would appear that
a meeting which proceeds without totalling the number of votes or seeking
pluralities is, in essence, following the Quaker procedure sketched in the
quotation at the head of this chapter. We may have in Smyth's practice
the genesis of Quaker decision making.
It
would be a great relief, of course, if we would now provide some document
enlarging on Smyth's decision making procedure, showing that it continued to be
in vogue among the General Baptists Fox met in 1647-48 or the Seekers in 1652,
and that Fox, recognizing its appropriateness,
127
adopted it. No such magic
document has been discovered. We are left with the possibility that Smyth's
procedure did influence Fox. To be sure, the channel of influence could have
been either the obvious one—through the Baptist communities Fox met—or the less
expected route—through the Seeker communities with their large membership of
former Baptists.
Uncertain
as we are about the method of transmission, we, can be more confident in
claiming that, at a minimum, Smyth's congregation was the principal medium
through which Continental Anabaptism was transferred into England. Part and
parcel of that Anabaptism was the belief in divine guidance of communities
seeking God's will together. George Fox and his early followers read little
other than their Bibles. Their doctrine came from beliefs that were in the air
and in the various religious communities which they visited. As Agnes Tierney
wrote, "Indeed, there was hardly a truth in the message of Fox that hadn't
been held by some sect either in England or on the Continent:'39 But
Fox "discovered" the truths he was to preach through the gradual
religious insights reported in his Journal. If today's scholar can
suggest possible sources for Fox's idea, there is no way to go beyond that and
certify the particular genesis of each of those ideas.
Rufus Jones is helpful on
this point:
It may be taken for granted,
I think, that Fox was unaware of his immense debt to the contemporary movements
and spiritual interpreters. The ideas and central truths which burst into his
consciousness as "openings;' "insights;' and "incursions"
were in the air. They were in books and were being preached in closets, if not
from house tops, but they were not real to Fox, and did not move him to action
until they surged up in him and were born of his flesh and blood.. . .
He did not originate the ideas which his movement incarnated, but he personally
discovered them, identified himself with them, poured his life through them. . .
A Divinely-Inspired Army:
The Putney Debates
As a
final illustration of the extent to which divine guarantees of decision making
were expected in the England of 1647, let us look at the advice offered by
Oliver Cromwell at points of disagreement during the Putney debates of his
Council of the Army.
The
participants in these debates included State Church Presbyterians, Independent
Congregationalists who shared much Presbyterian theology but advocated
toleration of all sects, and sectaries with Anabaptist and other separatist
allegiances who also sought toleration.
Cromwell
first proposed that a committee be formed of spokesmen for all viewpoints to
compare ideas "that we may understand really, as before God, the bottom of
our desires, and that we may seek God together, and see if God will give us an
uniting spirit:' He urged that they agree to this procedure, for "I doubt
not but, if in sincerity we are willing to submit to that light that God shall
cast in among us, God will unite us, and make us of one heart and one mind:'
Later
the same day in 1647, Cromwell returned to the point. The group should adjourn
"to seek the guidance of God, and to recover that presence of God that
seems to withdraw from us." The differing parties would gather again the
next afternoon "to see what God will direct you to say to us, that whilst
we are going one way, and you another, we be not both destroyed. This required
[guidance from the] Spirit:'
A few
days later, Cromwell opened the final Putney session by suggesting "that
everyone might speak their experiences as the issue of what God had given, in
answer to their prayers:' After many had spoken, he remarked:
Truly we have heard speaking
to us; and I cannot but think that in many of those things God hath spoke to
us. I cannot but think that in most that have spoke there hath been something
of God laid forth to us; and yet there have been several contradictions in what
hath been spoken. But certainly God is not the author of contradictions.
He
concluded his remarks with his own criteria for spiritual discernment.
I think that this law and
this [word] speaking [within us], which truly is in every man who hath the
Spirit of God, we are to have a regard to. And this to me seems to be very
clear, how we are to judge of the apprehension of men [as] to particular
cases, whether it be of God or no. When it doth not carry its evidence with it,
of the power of God to convince us clearly, our best way is to judge the
conformity or disformity of [it with] the law written within us, which is the
law of the Spirit of God, the mind of God, the mind of Christ.. . . I do not
know any outward evidence of what proceeds from the Spirit of God more clear
than this, the appearance of meekness and gentleness and mercy and patience and
forbearance and love, and a desire to do good to all, and to destroy none that
can be saved1
Indeed,
reliance on the Spirit for major decision making was in the air. Notice,
however, that Cromwell's procedure, although it seeks unity, does not require
it prior to taking action. Note, too, that Cromwell cannot simply state, as
would George Fox, that there is something of God speaking in every man; for
Cromwell, one should only listen to "every man who hath the Spirit'—which
is a more appropriately Calvinist turn of phrase
consistent with nonuniversal
predestination.
The criteria Cromwell offered for testing whether
an utterance was from God or not were highly vague: one judges the
"conformity or disfor-mity" of the utterance with "the law
written within us:' Then Cromwell quickly employed the gentle style of
speech as further gauge of whether the speech was true—a weak test indeed,
since one's style of speech can be mere affectation. As is noted in Part One of
this book, this ambiguity also plagued Fox and his coworkers.
Appendix
B A Quaker Glossary
Attender: Someone
who participates in Quaker worship but who has not yet sought and gained membership
in the meeting.
Centered: Condition of an individual or group in touch with
the divine presence.
Covered Meeting: Condition found in a worshiping group when an awareness and presence of
God is felt in its midst.
Clearness: Confidence that an action is consistent with the
divine will. Convinced Friend: A person who has been converted to
Quakerism.
Disorderly Walkers: Quakers whose conduct is contrary to the community's ethical standards.
Disownment: Excommunication; loss of membership in the
monthly meeting. First Day: Sunday.
First Publishers of Truth (Valiant Sixty): A group of sixty itinerant preachers who, with
George Fox, were the initial preachers of the Quaker gospel. Twelve of these
First Publishers were women.
Gathered Meeting: see Covered Meeting.
In the Lift: An insight or decision reached under the
influence of God. Inner Light: The presence of Christ (that of God) in
every person. Leadings: The sense of divine guidance or revelation in
any action.
Meeting House: The Quaker equivalent of a church building. The term is intended to be
suggestive of simplicity.
Meeting for Business: A gathering of Friends for the purpose of making business decisions.
Meeting for Sufferings: A body selected to do the work of London Yearly Meeting when the latter is
not in session.
Meeting for Worship: A gathering of Friends for the purpose of worship.
Minute: A summary
statement of an agreement reached in a meeting for business.
Monthly Meeting: A local community of Friends (akin to a parish) in which membership resides.
So named because, by custom, the community meets once a month to conduct a
meeting for business.
Opening: see Leading.
Quarterly Meeting: A regional unit, comprised of two or more monthly meetings, which meets on
a quarterly basis to conduct a meeting for business.
Representative Meeting: A body selected to do the work of a yearly meeting when the latter is not
in session; the American equivalent of London Yearly Meeting's Meeting for
Sufferings.
Sense of the Meeting: The harmony (union, unity) reached by participants in a business meeting.
Truth: A
synonym for Christ or the divine guide; the complex of Quaker ethical
traditions; the Quaker gospel.
Valiant Sixty: see First Publishers of Truth.
Yearly Meeting: An annual gathering for worship and business open to members of all
monthly meetings within a large region. This body is akin to a diocese in other
Christian communities, but with advisory rather than determinative authority
over smaller units. A yearly meeting may have a staff which provides services
to monthly and quarterly meetings, represents the yearly meeting to the general
public, and carries on the projects initiated by the annual meeting.
Yearly Meeting Friends: Quakers known for involvement at the yearly meeting level.
====
Notes
Part I
Chapter I
1. Rufus M. Jones, Mysticism and Democracy (Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1932), p. 56.
2. George Fox, The Journal of George Fox, ed.
John L. Nickalls (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1952), p.
56.
3. William C. Braithwaite, The Beginnings of
Quakerism (London: Macmillan, 1912), p. 426. Christopher Hill, The
World Turned Upside Down (New York: Viking, 1973), pp. 33-34,
163.
4. Fox, Journal, p. 263.
5. Abram R. Barclay, Letters of Early Friends (London:
Harvey and Darton, 1841), pp. 310, 297. Burrough says he came to
London nine years previous (1653) and that the Meeting was established two
years later [Cf. William C. Braithwaite, Spiritual Guidance in Quaker
Experience (London: Swarthmore Press, 1909) p. 64]. Braithwaite
claims the summer of 1656 for the establishment of the meeting in his The
Beginnings of Quakerism p. 320. Arnold Lloyd suggests 1652, but
with no documentation in his Quaker Social History, (New York: Longmans,
1950).
6. Abram R. Barclay, Letters, p.
298.
7. Ibid., p. 305.
8. Ibid.
9. Quaker Strongholds (n.p., 1891), pp. 11-13, cited in
London Yearly Meeting, Christian Faith and Practice in the Experience of the
Society of Friends (Richmond, Indiana: Friends United Press, 1973), par.
80.
10.Robert Barclay, Barclay's Apology in Modern
English, ed. Dean Freiday
(Philadelphia: Friends Book Store, 1967), proposition 2, sec. 7, pp.
357, 355-356. In order to clarify Barclay's argument, we use Freiday's
excellent edition whenever possible. Propositions and sections are indicated
for the benefit of a reader using some other edition.
1. Fox, Journal, p. 145; see also pp. 179,
218, 224, 225.
Rufus
M. Jones, New Studies in Mystical Religion (New York: Macmillan, 1927), p.
170. Rufus M. Jones, Quakerism, A Spiritual Movement (Philadelphia:
Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, 1963), p. 87.
Howard
H. Brinton, Friends for 300 Years (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1952),
pp. xiii, p. 63.
14. Quaker Fundamentals, p. 6, quoted in Henry Van Etten, George Fox and
the Quakers (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1959), p. 164.
15. Robert Barclay, Apology, proposition 2,
sec. 7, p. 356. Italics in original.
14. Richard T. Vann, The Social Development of
English Quakerism 1655-1755 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1969) pp.
112413. The words in the second set of quotation marks are taken from the
minutes themselves.
London Yearly Meeting, Christian Life, Faith and Thought in the Society of
Friends (London: Friends Book
Centre, 1943). The quoted material from Besse's Sufferings (n.p. 1753),
vol. 2, pp. 201-202, was written in jail eight days prior to the
execution.
17. Fox, Journal, p. 27. Cf. Fox's
similar responses to a court in 1652 on p. 135.
18. Ibid., p. 27.
19. Hill, The World Turned, pp.
190-191, 47, 60, 163, 22.
20. London Yearly Meeting, Christian Life, p.
15.
21. Hill, World Turned, p. 200.
22. B. Nicholson, A Blast from the Lord (1653)
quoted by J. F. Maclear, "Quakerism and the End of the Interregnum," Church
History 19:245.
23. Francis Howgill, A Woe to Magistrates (1654)
quoted by Hill, World Turned, p. 196.
24. James Nayler, Wisdom from Beneath (1653)
quoted by Hill, World Turned, p. 196.
25. George Fox and James Nayler, Several Papers (1654),
p. 23; quoted by Hill, World Turned, p. 199.
26. Abram R. Barclay, Letters of Early Friends (London:
Harvey and Darton, 1841), p. 311. Fox is writing in 1689. The term,
"monthly meeting;' which refers to the special session for business held
each month by local Quaker communities, may be loose usage here as the
tradition of meeting monthly for business sessions may not have emerged in many
districts before Fox's 1654 campaign. Van Etten, for example, flatly asserts,
"There was no such thing as a form of organization among the children of
the Light, Fox's first followers:' (Van Etten, George Fox, pp.
77-78.) Robert Barclay, the historian, seems to claim that there were no such
sessions prior to 1652 at Sedberg. (Robert Barclay, The Inner Life of the
Religious Societies of the Commonwealth, 3rd ed. (London: Hodden and
Stoughton, 1879), p. 351.
27. Fox, Journal, pp. 107-109,
22-23.
28. Swarthmore MSS, 3, 19, cited in Arnold Lloyd, Quaker
Social History, (New York: Longmans, 1950), p. 2. Boswell
Middleton MS., p. 26; cited in Lloyd, Quaker Social History, p.
1.
29. Portfolio 36, p. 19, cited in Lloyd, Quaker
Social History, p. 2.
30. Vann, The Social Development, p.
138. Abram R. Barclay, Letters, p. 298. Cf. Van Etten, George
Fox, p. 77.
31. Fox, Journal, p. 215.
32. Harold Loukes urges that such
"settling" probably meant establishing monthly meetings. The
Discovery of Quakerism (London: Harrop, 1960) p. 63. Cf. Fox, Journal,
p. 174.
33. William Wistar Comfort, William Penn's
Religious Background (Ambler, Pennsylvania: Upper Dublin United Monthly
Meeting, 1944), p. 12.
34. G. M. Trevelyan, English Social History, p.
267, cited by Taylor, Valiant Sixty, pp. 74-75.
35. Fox, Journal, p. 280.
36. Ibid., pp. 280-281.
37. Ibid., pp. 281-285.
38. William C. Braithwaite, The Beginnings, pp. 338-339.
39. Abram R. Barclay, Letters, p.
284. Cf. Lloyd, Quaker Social History, p. 21.
40. Hill, World Turned, p. 279.
41. John Audland, The Innocent Delivered Out of
the Snare (n.p. 1658), p. 33, cited in Hill, World Turned, p.
196.
42. J. A. Atkinson, ed., Tracts Relating to the
Civil War in Cheshire (1641-1659) (n.p.: Chetham Society, 1909), p.
186, cited in Hill, World Turned, p. 280. Cf. p. 199 and Cf.
Hugh Barbour, The Quakers in Puritan England (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1964), pp. 199-206.
43. A. L. Morton, The World of the Ranters (London:
Lawrence and Wishart, 1970), pp.. 18-19.
44. Hill, World Turned, pp. 203,
283.
45. Twenty-one Quakers died from persecution before
April 1659; over three hundred died during the Restoration period. See
Braithwaite, Beginnings, p. 465.
46. Fox, Journal, p. 398.
Braithwaite suggests the number 4,230 in The Second Period of Quakerism (London:
Macmillan, 1919), p. 9.
47. Fox, Journal, p. 399.
48. Hill, World Turned, p. 194.
49. Braithwaite, Second Period, p.
13.
14. Max Weber, From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, eds. H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1958).
19. Fox, Journal, pp. 285n, 372, See
Braithwaite, Beginnings, p. 338.
14. Reliquiae Baxterianae, vol. 1, pp. 436-437, cited in Hill, World
Turned, p. 168. Cf. Brinton, Friends, p. 158.
21. Loukes treats the controversy as
"quaint" in Discovery, p. 63; Van Etten calls it
"quite unimportant" in George Fox, p. 76; even Fox's principal
contemporary defender admits to his own initial prejudice against Fox. Kenneth
E. Carroll, John Perrot: Early Quaker Schismatic (London: Friends
Historical Society, 1971), p. vii. Braithwaite, Beginnings, p. 275.
22. Braithwaite, Second Period, p. 233.
23. Fox, Journal, p. 268.
24. Epistles and Advices of George Fox to Birmingham
Friends (n.p. 1681), cited in Lloyd,
Quaker Social History, pp. 178-179. See Braithwaite, Second Period, p 242.
25. John Bolton, Judas and His Treachery (London:
n.p., 1670), pp. 1849, cited in Carroll, Perrot, p. 61.
26. John Perrot, To All Simple, Honest-Intending and
Innocent People (London:
n.p., 1664), p. 6, cited in Carroll, Perrot, p.
78.
27. Carroll, Perrot, pp. 57-58, 55, 75, 60,
50. See Braithwaite, Second Period, p. 237.
28. Braithwaite, Second Period, p.
244.
29. Carroll, Perrot, pp. 64, 65.
See Braithwaite, Second Period, p. 235.
30. George Fox, The Spirit of Envy, Lying, and
Persecution Made Manifest (London: n.p., 1664), p. 13, quoted in
Carroll, Perrot, p. 65.
31. Carroll, Perrot, p. 77. See
Braithwaite, Second Period, p. 240.
Part I
Chapter II
1.Abram R. Barclay, Letters, p.
321. Carroll. Perrot, pp. 82, 91. See Lloyd, Quaker Social
History, p. 24.
2.Braithwaite, Second Period, p.
248.
3.Brinton, Friends, p. 101.
4.Kenneth Carroll lists twenty-one of the leading
supporters of Perrot in a catalog he describes as a "Quaker Who's Who:'
See Carroll, Perrot, pp. 87-89, 91.
5.Fox, Journal, pp. 510-511,
505-507, 510. It would appear that, in some areas, custom had changed during
the persecution to holding meeting for business only quarterly. See Brathwaite,
Second Period, p. 251.
6.Braithwaite, Second Period, p.
276.
7.Fox, Journal, p. 511. See Carroll,
Perrot, pp. 92-94.
8.Brinton, Friends, p. 101. See Vann, Social Development, p. 91.
1. Fox, Journal, p. xlvii. Edited
by John L. Nickalls (London Yearling Meeting).
Swarthmore Collection, vol. 5, p. 9,
quoted in Braithmore, Second Period, p. 280.
Fox, Journal, p. 20-21, 14.
Karl Rahner and Herbert Vorgrimler, Theological
Dictionary (New York: Seabury Press, 1965), p. 72.
4.Fox, Journal, p. 35.
1. Braithwaite, Beginnings, p.
26.
6.William Allen, The Danger of Enthusiasm
Discovered in an Epistle to the Quakers (London: Barbazon Aylmer, 1674), p. 12.
1. Ibid, p. 96.
Van Etten, George Fox, p. 14.
George Fox and Thomas Lawrence, Concerning
Marriage (n.p., 1663), p. 10, cited in J. William Frost, The
Quaker Family in Colonial America (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1973), p.
20.
8.Braithwaite, Spiritual Guidance, p. 51.
9.Hill, World Turned, p. 225. He
went through the streets crying, "Woe unto the bloody Lichfield." See
Fox, Journal, p. 71.
10. Braithwaite, Spiritual Guidance, pp.
40-41, 55.
11. For discussions of the dilemma, consult
Braithwaite, Second Period, p. 250 and Braithwaite, Beginnings,
p. 109.
23 Braithwaite, Beginnings, p.
147.
24. Abram R. Barclay, Letters, pp.
358, 355-356.
25. Barbour, Quakers in Puritan England, p.
119.
26. Braithwaite, Spiritual Guidance, p. 57.
24. Braithwaite, Beginnings, p. 150. See
Roland H. Bainton, The Travail of Religious Liberty (Philadelphia:
Westminster Press, 1951), p. 128.
Vernon
Noble, The Man in Leather Breeches (New York: Philosophical Library,
1953), p. 79.
Braithwaite,
Second Period, p. 339. Christopher Hill, a non-Quaker student
of the period, reassures us that, when Quakers "went naked for a sign;'
they wore "only a loincloth about their middles for decency:'
Unfortunately, Hill does not document his assertion. See Hill, World Turned,
p. 256.
Bainton,
Travail, p. 128.
For
examples, the reader might well skim I Corinthians and II Corinthians.
Frost, Quaker
Family, p. 24; see Genesis. 6:1-4, 24:4, 26:35.
Ibid, p.
34, 40, 33.
27. Gospel-Truth, pp. 131, 138, quoted in Hill, World Turned, pp.
212-213.
24. Robert Barclay, Apology, proposition 3,
sec. 7, p. 62. Italics in original.
Carroll,
Perrot, p. 85. See Frost. Quaker Family, p. 25.
ARBARC./73,
Warmsworth, Oct. 13, 1659, cited in Barbour, Quakers in Puritan England, p.
120.
Robert
Barclay, The Anarchy of the Ranters (Philadelphia: Joseph Crukshank,
1770), p. 72. Brinton, Friends, p. 49. Galatians, 5:22.
Abram R. Barclay, Letters, pp. 336, 341, 403-404. Henry Cadbury, George
Fox's Book of Miracles (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1912), pp.
112414.
Robert
Barclay, Apology, proposition 2, sec. 12, p. 370, sec. 10, p. 366.
Italics.
Fox, Journal,
p. xliii.
Frost, Quaker
Family, p. 13. For Braithwaite's confirming judgment, see Spiritual
Guidance, p. 52.
Jacques
Guillet et al., Discernment of Spirits (Collegeville, Minnesota:
Liturgical Press, 1970).
Ignatius
Loyola, The Spiritual Exercises, trans. Louis J. Puhl, S. J.
(Westminster, Maryland:
Newman Press, 1951), nos. 176, 313-336, 170.
44. John Carroll Futrell, Making an Apostolic
Community of Love (St. Louis, Missouri: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1970), PP.
193494.
45. Braithwaite, Spiritual Guidance, p.
66; See Van Etten, George Fox, p. 77.
44. The Spirit of the Hat (n.p., 1673), cited in Braithwaite, Second
Period, pp. 292, 293.
47. Braithwaite, Second Period, pp.
294, 297-298.
48. "Meetings for Discipline" in MS
"Books of Extracts;' quoted in Ibid., p. 348.
44. Yearly Meeting Printed Epistles, vol. 1 (1681-1769), pp. li-lvi, printed in Ibid.,
p. 309.
49. MS "Christian and Brotherly Advices;' p.
105, cited in Lloyd, Quaker Social History, p. 28.
50. MS. "Minutes of the Yearly Meeting;' vol. 1,
p. 66, quoted in Lloyd, Quaker Social History, p. 28.
51. Works, p. 238, cited in Braithwaite, Second
Period, p. 340.
52. Lloyd, Quaker Social History, pp. 26, 27.
53. Robert Barclay, Anarchy, pp. 84-89, 98,
102, 105, 109.
54. Allen, Danger, p. 91.
55. Robert Barclay, Anarchy, p. 91, 24-25.
56. Ibid. pp. 58-64, 21, 65-68, 74.
44. Thomas Crisp, The First Part of Babel's Builders
Unmasking Themselves (1682), cited in Braithwaite, Second Period, p. 349.
51. Yearly Meeting Minutes, 17.iii.1695 and George
Keith, The Plea of the Innocent (n.p., 1692); both cited in Lloyd, Quaker
Social History, p. 137.
52. Braithwaite, Second Period, pp. xxxi, 386.
53. Ibid, p. xli. Jones divides the blame
somewhat: Continental Quietism later reinforces the damage Barclay does. See
Jones, Spiritual Movement, p. 156.
54. Braithwaite, Second Period, p. xxxvi, xlv,
xxxv.
55. Braithwaite, Second Period, p. xliv. See
Jones, Spiritual Movement, pp. 158-159.
44. Lloyd, Quaker Social History, p. 123.
53. Robert Barclay, Apology, proposition 4,
sec. 4, p. 94; proposition 6, sec. 24,
p. 176 and proposition 5,
sec. 21, p. 162; proposition 11, pp. 348-409 passim.
54. Abram R. Barclay, Letters, p.
219.
55. Fox and Lawrence, Concerning Marriage, p.
12, cited in Frost, Quaker Family
p. 14.
55. Braithwaite, Second Period, p.
383.
56. Fox, Journal, p. 27. See
Braithwaite, Spiritual Guidance, p. 35.
57. Dean Freiday, "Not a Steeple, a Steeple, a
Steeple," Friends' Quarterly, 18 (October 1974): 380-381.
58. Lloyd, Quaker Social History, p. 123.
59. Minutes of Yearly Meeting, vol. 1, 4th, 4th mo.,
1675, cited in N.C. Hunt, Two Early Political Associations (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1961), p. 3.
60. Minutes of Meeting for Sufferings, vol. 1, 18th,
8th mo., 1675, cited in Ibid., p. 3.
61. Ibid., p. 26, Cf. pp. 4,
7-10, 12, 15.
62. Ibid., chaps. 3-6.
63. Matthew 5:34. Minutes of Meeting for Sufferings,
vol. 10, 12th, 12th mo., 1695/6, cited in Ibid, p. 50.
64. Minutes of Meeting for Sufferings, vol. 21, 4th,
3rd mo., 1715, cited in Ibid., p. 52.
65. Ibid., p. 53.
66. Minutes of Meeting for Sufferings, vol. 26, 17th,
1st mo., 1735/6, cited in Ibid., p. 90.
67. Braithwaite, Second Period, p.
516.
68. Ibid.
69. Paul R. Lawrence and Jay W. Lorsch, Organization
and Environment (Boston: Harvard University Press, 1967), p.
209. See p. 185.
70. Ibid., pp. 192-193.
71. Ibid., p. 194.
72. For the early history of Quakerism in the
Philadelphia Yearly Meeting area, the reader might consult Friends in the
Delaware Valley, ed. John M. Moore (Haver-ford, Pennsylvania: Friends
Historical Association, 1981).
Part II
Chapter I
1.London Yearly Meeting, Christian Faith and
Practice in the Experience of the Society of Friends (Richmond, Indiana:
Friends United Press, 1973), frontispiece. Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, Faith
and Practice (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, 1972),
frontispiece.
2.Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, Faith and
Practice, 1972, pp. 17-18.
3.London Yearly Meeting, Christian Faith and
Practice, 1960, par. 353.
4.James F. Walker, "The Quaker Meeting for
Business;' Pendle Hill Bulletin 190 (April 1967):1-3. Cf. London Yearly
Meeting, Church Government (London: Friends Book Centre, 1968), par.
716.
5.Thomas S. Brown, When Friends Attend to
Business (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, n.d.), unpaginated.
Cf. Douglas V. Steere, "The Quaker Decisionmaking Process;' paper
presented to Guilford College faculty, 12 February, 1975.
6.Steere, "Quaker Decisionmaking Process;' p.
3. Cf. London Yearly Meeting, Church Government, par. 715.
7.D. Elton Trueblood, "The Quaker Method of
Reaching Decisions;' in Beyond Dilemmas, ed. S. B. Laughlin (New York:
Lippincott, 1937), pp. 122-123.
8.Burton R. Clark, The Distinctive College:
Antioch, Reed, and Swarthmore (Chicago, Aldine, 1970), p. 214.
7. Stuart Chase, Roads to Agreement (New
York: Harper, 1951) pp. 51-52.
Part II
Chapter II
1.Trueblood, "Quaker Method;' p.
123.
2.Chase, Roads, p. 49. See London
Yearly Meeting, Church Government, par.
7201.
1. Margaret H. Bacon, The
Quiet Rebels (New York: Basic Books, 1969), p. 174.
Glenn
Bartoo, "Quaker Decisions;' (Masters Dissertation, University of Chicago,
1952), p. 101.
To
protect confidentiality, all quotations from interviews will appear in
quotation marks, but without attribution.
3.Clark, Distinctive College, p. 173.
1. Representative Meeting, 24th, 4th mo. 1975.
Francis
Pollard, Beatrice Pollard, and Robert Pollard, Democracy and the Quaker
Method (London: Bannisdale Press, 1949), p. 62.
Brown, When
Friends, unpaginated.
Walker,
"Quaker Meeting for Business;' unpaginated.
London
Yearly Meeting, Christian Faith and Practice, par. 353.
5.Howard Haines Brinton, Reaching Decisions: The
Quaker Method (Wallingford,
Pa.: Pendle Hill, n.d.), p. 17.
1. Representative Meeting, 27th, 2nd mo., 1975.
Howard
H. Brinton, Creative Worship (Wallingford, Pa.: Pendle Hill, 1963), pp.
93-94. Cf. Pollard, Democracy, p. 52. For remnants of that earlier
atmosphere, see Bacon, Quiet Rebels, pp. 203-205.
Part II
Chapter III
1.Cf. Bartoo, "Quaker Decisions;' pp.
113, 114.
2.AR Barc.173, Warmsworth, October 13, 1659, cited
in Barbour, Quakers in Puritan England, p. 120. See I. Milton
Yinger, The Scientific Study of Religion (New York: Macmillan, 1970), p.
104.
3.Abram R. Barclay, Letters, p.
305. Much earlier, Nicholas of Cusa had singled out that the Holy Spirit,
"who is the spirit of union and concord" led church councils to
agreement without dissent. De Concordantia Catholica, 2.15.170. Cf. Paul
F. Sigmund, Nicholas of Cusa and Medieval Political Thought (Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1963), p. 227.
4.Oxford English Dictionary, 1971, ed., s.v.,
"concordance." Steere, "Quaker Decisionmaking;' p. 4.
5.Bartoo, "Quaker Decisions;' p.
67.
6.G. Von Schulze Gaevernitz, Democracy and
Religion (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1930), p. 24.
7.A phenomenon common in groups which operate by
voting seems to apply here as well, but with somewhat less significance. The
individual who withdraws his objection or merely remains silent on a proposal
he is known to oppose can expect that those now on the dominant side will do
the same in his favor some day when they are in the minority on an issue. They
owe him a debt for his cooperation. Thus, the individual who is weighing his
leverage over the group might accede to the majority on a series of minor
issues in order to build up enough debts to force the group to go in his
direction on some matter of great importance to him.
Our
observations lead us to conclude that such conduct goes on informally in
matters of little moment: I agree to your committee's proposal for a picnic and
I expect you to endorse my committee's proposal that the monthly meeting join
the local ministerial alliance.
Major
issues are another matter. Here Friends report that such a procedure-clearly
opposed to the principle of selflessly seeking the Truth in the alternatives
offered the group-would be most inappropriate. The decisions this writer has
observed over many sessions of the same meetings, e.g., Representative Meeting
from October 1974 to May 1975, give no reason to believe that such behavior is
at all common.
1. Philadelphia Yearly Meeting,
Sessions Six and Seven, 28th, 3rd mo., 1975.
After
his personal observations of Friends came to an end, the writer was informed
that the incident's outcomes were more significant than had appeared at first.
At the subsequent meeting to decide on allotment of the budget quota among the
monthly meetings, the objectors from the dissatisfied meeting continued their
fight. Eventually, the "slighted" meeting refused to pay its share of
the Yearly Meeting budget. One ought not think that the clerk's speed caused
this major conflict within the community. Rather, the clerk's action merely of‑
fered the occasion for
transition from an ongoing but informal conflict of philosophy to a public
dispute. The sense of "failure of due process" seems to
have contributed to the
unhappy meeting's feeling of justification in refusing to accept the decision
of the subsequent meeting called to distribute shares of the financial burden
according to each meeting's ability to pay.
1. The passage of time often mellows memories and
invites wit. One of the participants commented years later that it is amazing
how "the topic of cohabitation can make estranged bedfellows of a body of
Quakers."
Cf.
Howard H. Brinton, Guide to Quaker Practice (Wallingford, Pa.: Pendle
Hill, 1946), pp. 37-38.
Brinton,
Creative Worship, p. 91.
Part II
Chapter IV
1.Cp. Karl Rahner and Herbert Vorgrimler, Theological
Dictionary (New York: Seabury, 1973), P. 303.
2.Henry Nash Smith, Virgin Land (New York:
Vintage, 1950), p. v. 3 Rahner and Vorgrimler, Theological Dictionary, p 303
3.Stanley Ellin, "An Open Letter to All
Friends;' Friends Journal (January 1, 1976), p. 10. Cf. Henry
I. Cadbury, The Character of a Quaker (Wallingford, Pa.: Pen-die
Hill, 1959), p. 24.
4.Bartoo, "Quaker Decisions;' p.
62.
5.Blanche W. Shaffer, ed., No Time But This
Present (Birmingham: Friends World Committee for Consultation, 1965), pp.
88-89.
6.L. Hugh Doncaster, The Quaker Message; A Personal
Affirmation (Wallingford,
Pa.: Pendle Hill, 1972), p. 5.
4. See the case of the Jewish Quaker in Bacon, Quiet
Rebels, p. 207.
Shaffer,
No Time, p. 48.
Ellin,
"An Open Letter," p. 10.
7.Kathleen M. Slack, Constancy and Change in the
Society of Friends (London: Friends Home Service Committee, 1967), pp. 43-44.
4. Howard E. Collier, The Quaker Meeting (Wallingford,
Pa.: Pendle Hill, 1944), pp. 43-44.
Shaffer,
No Time, p. 83.
Bartoo,
"Quaker Decisions;' p. 63. Italics in original.
Many
allude to the Pollards' book as "worth reading along this line:' See
Pollard, Democracy, pp. 148-149 and 152-154.
9.Slack, Constancy and Change, p. 45.
4. Whether this Friend is right in discerning a
shift to "explicit faith" is unclear.
Certainly the Christocentric
approach is generally respected among today's
Friends if one uses the
prominence of Christocentric Quakers in Philadelphia
Yearly Meeting committees as
a yardstick. This researcher was struck, however, by the number of universalist
Friends who revealed little appreciation of recent developments in biblical
research and therefore were unaware of the "passe" character of the
science versus the Bible dispute. To such Friends, all Christocen-trics tend to
be lumped as benighted fundamentalists.
4. Rufus M. Jones, Later Periods of Quakerism, 2
vols. (London: Macmillan, 1921), 1:445.
Trueblood,
"Quaker Method;' p. 115.
Brinton,
Guide, p. 41.
Thomas
F. O'Dea, The Mormons (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957)
p. 86.
4. Philadelphia Friends use
"thee" for nominative as well as accusative case.
13.Trueblood, "Quaker Method;' p.
107. Rufus M. Jones, Mysticism and
142
Democracy (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University
Press, 1932), p. 32. James D. Wilson, "Quakerism and the
Democratic Process;' Quaker Life, May, 1973, p. 27.
14. The speaker distinguished lower-level groups
where the majority of participants are often not Quakers from higher more
flexible units like the Board of Directors, all of whose members are by statute
Friends. This observer noted a similar flexibility among monthly meetings and
Philadelphia Yearly Meeting committees; in most cases a turn to silent
reflection or a "delay until everybody's comfortable" produced a
tempering of individual priorities even among those Friends most heavily
committed to their own special interest.
15. Brown, When Friends, unpaginated.
16. Trueblood, "Quaker Method;' p.
113.
17. Atypical but interesting was the gentleman of
mature years who sat next to this observer during a session of 1975 Yearly
Meeting. At the clerk's call for silent reflection, my neighbor picked up the Philadelphia
Bulletin and read the comic strips until the day's business began.
18. Princeton Monthly Meeting, Meeting for Business,
4th, 5th mo., 1975.
19. Pollard, Democracy, p. 127.
20. Lewis Carroll, The Annotated Alice, ed.
Martin Gardner (New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1960), p. 269.
21. For example, Ellin, "Open Letter:' An
attempt to reconcile the two groups is T. Canby Jones, ed., Quaker
Understanding of Christ and of Authority (Philadelphia: Friends World
Committee for Consultation, 1974).
22. Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, Session 1, 21st, 3rd
mo., 1975.
23. For example, Elias Hicks, Journal of the Life and
Religious Labours of Elias Hicks (New York: Isaac T. Hooper, 1832).
Part II
Chapter V
1.Steere, "Quaker Decisionmaking," p.
4. The reader should note Steere's use of "he or she." Women
frequently serve as clerks and are often noted for the sensitivity with which
they carry out the task.
2.The clerk of Yearly Meeting and clerk of
Representative Meeting prepare agenda with their Planning Committee and
Executive Committee respectively. In monthly meeting, the clerk consults the
overseers, sometimes in only an informal manner. In less regular meetings,
consultation is less likely.
3.London Yearly Meeting, Church Government, par.
726.
4.Bartoo, "Quaker Decisions," p. 35.
1. Brinton, Guide, p. 37.
Brinton,
Guide, p. 37.
London
Yearly Meeting, Church Government, par. 726.
Princeton
Monthly Meeting, Meeting for Business, 2nd, 2nd mo., 1975.
143
9.Douglas M. McGregor, "The Human Side of
Enterprise" in Organizational Behavior and Management, eds, Donald
E. Porter and Philip B. Applewhite. (Scranton: International Textbook Company,
1964), pp. 453 and 454.
10. Ibid., pp. 455, 459-460.
11. London Yearly Meeting, Church Government, par.
721. Cf. Robert K. Greenleaf, Servant Leadership (Ramsey, New Jersey:
Paulist Press, 1977).
12. I Cor. 12-14 and Rahner and Vorgrimler, Theological
Dictionary, p. 72.
13. Minutes of Representative Meeting for 22nd, 10th
mo., 1970: Minute 11.
14. Minutes of Representative Meeting for 3rd, 12th mo.,
1970 and Interview.
15. Friends who explicitly accept either a
Christological or a universalist understanding of the special quality of the
gathered meeting have no difficulty verbalizing their religious acceptance of a
decision made under the circumstances we describe here. Others whose
membership in Friends does not seem to include the experiential quality of
Friends worship are sometimes hard-pressed to deal with the sort of event we
are discussing. Said one, "I don't go in much for that stuff; but you sure
have to admit something odd is happening."
Conclusion
1. "Report of Representative Meeting to Clerks
of Monthly Meetings," 3rd, 2nd mo., 1977.
2. Proceedings of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, 1981
(Philadelphia: Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, 1981). [The decline continued, even
accelerating slightly, from 1980 to 1994. (1994-1995 Yearbook Philadelphia:
Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, 1994, p. 28.)
3. Calvin Wall Redekop, The Old Colony Mennonites:
Dilemmas of Ethnic Minority Lift (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1969).
1. Richard A. Falk, Future
Worlds (New York: Foreign Policy Association, 1976),
p. 7. For a sketch of how
the national viewpoints would have to be changed, see pp. 47-54.
1. Warren C. Bennis and Philip E. Slater, The
Temporary Society (New York: Harper and Row, 1968).
Roberto
Mangabeira Unger, Knowledge and Politics (New York: Free Press, 1975),
p. 19.
Ibid.,
pp. 15, 21-24.
Alfred
North Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas (New York: Free Press, 1933),
p. 171.
Appendix
A
1. Acts 15:25, 28 (King James).
2.Robert Barclay, Anarchy, p. 21.
1. Joseph A. McCallin, "The Development of a
Legal Theory of Majority Rule in Elections;' Saint Louis University Law
Journal 16 (Fall 1971): 1-10.
144
4.Paul F. Sigmund, Nicholas of Cusa, p. 146.
5.Gaines Post, Studies in Medieval Legal Thought
(Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1964), chap. 4.
6.Lectura ad III. 7. 15 fol. 414b; cited in Brian Tierney, Foundations
of the Conciliar Theory (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Cambridge University
Press, 1955), p. 116.
7.For practical English applications of this
principle, see Kathleen Edwards, The English Secular Cathedrals in the
Middle Ages (Manchester: n.p., 1949), pp. 97-135, cited in Tierney, Conciliar
Theory, p. 112.
8.Tierney, Conciliar Theory, pp. 220-237.
9.De Concordantia Catholica, 1.8.63: "Quare corpus sacerdotale, licet
caducum et mortale at deviabile in memberis, non tamen in toto, quando semper
major pars in fide et lege Christi permaneat ......cited in Sigmund, Nicholas,
p. 146.
10.De Concordantia Catholica, 2.15.170, cited in Sigmund, Nicholas, p. 147.
11.Sigmund, Nicholas, pp. 224, 228.
12.De Concordantia Catholica, 2.10.138, cited in Ibid:, p. 227.
13."Qui enim sibi dissentiunt, non agunt
concilium' De Concordantia, Catholica, 2.1.93, cited in Sigmund, Nicholas,
p. 145.
14.Christopher St. German, The Power of the
Clergy, ch. 6, cited by Franklin Le Van Baumer, "Christopher St.
German;' American Historical Review 62 (1936/7):646, noted in George
Huntston Williams, "The Religious Background of the Idea of a Loyal
Opposition" in Voluntary Associations, ed. D. B. Robertson
(Richmond, Va.: John Knox Press, 1966), p. 62.
15.Williams, "Loyal Opposition;' p. 62. Italics
in original.
16.George Huntston Williams, The Radical
Reformation (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1962), p. xxvii.
17.Williams notes that a similar theory evolved
among magisterial reformers who sometimes sought "parliamentary
quasi-conciliar enactment of the royal headship of a national church."
Ibid., p. 235.
18.Ibid., p. 176, Cf. pp.
48-49, 77, 78.
19.Ibid., pp. 223, 829.
20.Cadbury, Book of Miracles, pp. x-xi. For
Boehme, see Jones, Mysticism and Democracy, p. 140.
21.Braithwaite, Beginnings, pp. xxv-xxvi.
22.Vernon Noble, The Man in Leather Breeches (New
York: Philosophical Library, 1953). p. 45. See Jones, Mysticism
and Democracy, pp. 137-138.
23.Braithwaite, Beginnings, p. 24. Williams, Radical
Reformation, pp. 789, 778, 790n. Fox, Journal, pp. 30-44.
24.Lloyd, Quaker Social History, pp. 24, 1. Jones, Mysticism and Democracy, pp. 56,
70-71. Robert Barclay, Inner Life, p. 175. Ephraim Pagitt, Heresiography,
Sixth ed. (London: William Lee, 1662),pp. 101, 233. Cf. added page facing
title page. Pagitt inserts Quakers immediately after Seekers, evidently because
the two are so closely allied. See also Rufus M. Jones, Studies in Mystical
Religion (London: Macmillan, 1909), p. 456.
145
25. Robert Barclay, Inner Life, p. 173.
Braithwaite, Beginnings, p. 45.
26. Braithwaite, Beginnings, PP.
44-45. Robert Barclay, Inner Life, pp. 273, 255, 175. Fox, Journal,
pp. 30-46. Jones, Mysticism and Democracy, pp. 72-73, 75.
27. Braithwaite, Beginnings, p. 12.
28. Pagitt, Heresiography, p. 244.
29. Robert Barclay, Inner Life, pp.
248-249. Fox, Journal, pp. 9, 19-20. Jones, Mystical
Religion, pp. 411, 414.
30. John Smyth, Works, ed. W. T. Whitley
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1915), pp. 275, 277, 271,
269. Williams, Radical Reformation, p. 777. William I. Hull, The
Rise of Quakerism in Amsterdam (Swarthmore, Pennsylvania: Swarthmore
Monograph Series, 1938), pp. 12, 3.
31. Abram R. Barclay, Letters, p.
285. See also Fox's Letter of 1656 to Friends cited in Fox, Journal, p.
282.
32. Smyth, pp. 759, 743-744, 749. Robert
Barclay, Inner Life, p. 117. Williams, Radical
Reformation, P. 788.
33. Cf. Williams, Radical Reformation, p. 790.
34. "May not the spirit of Christ speak in the
female as well as in the male?" George Fox, Gospel-Truth (n.p.,
1656), p. 81, cited in Hill, World Turned, p. 251.
35. Robert Barclay, Inner Life, p.
156.
36. John Smyth, Works, pp. lxxix-lc;
lxxxvii-lxxxix. John Aron Toews, Sebastian Franck: Friend and Critic of Early
Anabaptism: (Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Minnesota, 1964), p.
184.
37. Lloyd, Quaker Social History, pp. 2-3.
Robert Barclay, Inner Life, p. 353.
38. Robert Barclay, Inner Life, p.
116. This passage is apparently excerpted from a letter from Hugh Bromhead to
William Hamerton of London. Harleian MS 360 fol.
39. Agnes L. Tierney, Ten Studies in the History and
Teaching of the Society of Friends (Richmond, Indiana: Friends Book and Supply House,
1922), p. 13. Braithwaite, Beginnings, p. xxv.
25. Jones, Mysticism and Democracy, pp.
40-41. Fox, Journal, e.g., pp. 10-18.
A. S.
P. Woodhouse, ed., Puritanism and Liberty (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1951) pp. 105, 104, 95, 23, 17-19. Bracketed words
supplied by Woodhouse.
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