A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume II (of 3) by Thomas Clarkson

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It must be obvious, when we consider that the Quaker ministers are often
persons of but little erudition, and that their principles forbid them
to premeditate on these occasions, that we can hardly expect to find the
same logical division of the subject, or the same logical provings of
given points, as in the sermons of those who spend hours, or even days
together, in composing them.

With respect to the apparent barrenness, or the little matter sometimes
discoverable in their sermons, they would reply, that God has not given
to every man a similar or equal gift. To some he has given largely; to
others in a less degree. Upon some he has bestowed gifts, that may edify
the learned; upon others such as may edify the illiterate. Men are not
to limit his spirit by their own notions of qualification. Like the
wind, it bloweth not only where it listeth, but as it listeth. Thus
preaching, which may appear to a scholar as below the ordinary standard,
may be more edifying to the simple hearted, than a discourse better
delivered, or more eruditely expressed. Thus again, preaching, which may
be made up of high sounding words, and of a mechanical manner and an
affected tone, and which may, on these accounts, please the man of
learning and taste, may be looked upon as dross by a man of moderate
abilities or acquirements. And thus it has happened, that many have left
the orators of the world and joined the Quaker society, on account of
the barrenness of the discourses which they have heard among them.

With respect to Quaker sermons being sometimes less connected or more
confused than those of others, they would admit that this might
apparently happen; and they would explain it in the following manner.
Their ministers, they would say, when they sit among the congregation,
are often given to feel and discern the spiritual states of individuals
then present, and sometimes to believe it necessary to describe such
states, and to add such advice as these may seem to require. Now these
states being frequently different from each other, the description of
them, in consequence of an abrupt transition from one to the other, may
sometimes occasion an apparent inconsistency in their discourses on such
occasions. The Quakers, however, consider all such discourses, or those
in which states are described, as among the most efficacious and useful
of those delivered.

But whatever may be the merits of the Quaker sermons, there are
circumstances worthy of notice with respect to the Quaker preachers. In
the first place, they always deliver their discourses with great
seriousness. They are also singularly bold and honest, when they feel it
to be their duty, in the censure of the vices of individuals, whatever
may be the riches they enjoy. They are reported also from unquestionable
authority, to have extraordinary skill in discerning the internal
condition of those who attend their ministry, so that many, feeling the
advice to be addressed to themselves, have resolved upon their amendment
in the several cases to which their preaching seemed to have been
applied.

As I am speaking of the subject of ministers, I will answer one or two
questions, which I have often heard asked concerning it.

The first of these is, do the Quakers believe that their ministers are
uniformly moved, when they preach, by the spirit of God?

I answer--the Quakers believe they may be so moved, and that they ought
to be so moved. They believe also that they are often so moved. But they
believe again, that except their ministers are peculiarly cautious, and
keep particularly on their watch, they may mistake their own
imaginations for the agency of this spirit. And upon this latter belief
it is, in part, that the office of elders is founded, as before
described.

The second is, as there are no defined boundaries between the reason of
man and the revelation of God, how do the Quakers know that they are
favoured at any particular time, either when they preach or when they do
not preach, with the visitation of this spirit, or that it is, at any
particular time, resident within them?

Richard Claridge, a learned and pious clergyman of the Church of England
in the last century, but who gave up his benefices and joined the
society of the Quakers, has said a few words in his Tractatus
Hierographicus, upon this subject, a part of which I shall transcribe as
an answer to this latter question.

"Men, says he, may certainly know, that they do believe on the Son of
God, with that faith that is unfeigned, and by which the heart is
purified: for this faith is evidential and assuring, and consequently
the knowledge of it is certain. Now they, who certainly know that they
have this knowledge, may be certain also of the spirit of Christ
dwelling in them; for [133] 'he that _believeth_ _on the Son of God, hath
the witness in himself;'_ and this witness is the spirit; for it is
[134] 'the spirit that beareth witness,' of whose testimony they may be
as certain, as of that faith the spirit beareth witness to."

[Footnote 133: 1 John 5.10.]

[Footnote 134:1 John 5. 6.]

Again--"They may certainly know that they love the Lord above all, and
their neighbour as themselves. For the command implies not only a
possibility of knowing it in general, but also of such a knowledge as
respects their own immediate concernment therein, and personal benefit
arising from a sense of their conformity and obedience thereunto. And
seeing they may certainly know this, they may also as certainly know,
that the spirit of Christ dwelleth in them;[135] for 'God is love, and
he that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him.' And
[136] 'if we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is
perfected in us.'" In the same manner he goes on to enumerate many other
marks from texts of scripture, by which he conceives this question may
be determined[137].

[Footnote 135:1 John 4. 16.]

[Footnote 136:1 John 4. 12.]

[Footnote 137: The Quakers conceive it to be no more difficult for them
to distinguish the motions of the Holy Spirit, than for those of the
church of England, who are candidates for holy orders. Every such
candidate is asked, "Do you trust that you are inwardly moved by the
Holy Ghost to take upon you this office and ministration?" The answer
is, "I trust so."]

I shall conclude this chapter on the subject of the Quaker preaching, by
an extract from Francis Lambert of Avignon, whose book was published in
the year 1516, long before the society of the Quakers took its rise in
the world. "Beware, says he, that thou determine not precisely to speak
what before thou hast meditated, whatsoever it be; for though it be
lawful to determine the text which thou art to expound, yet not at all
the interpretation; lest, if thou doest so, thou takest from the Holy
Spirit that which is his, namely, to direct thy speech that thou mayest
preach in the name of the Lord, void of all learning, meditation, and
experience; and as if thou hadst studied nothing at all, committing thy
heart, thy tongue, and thyself, wholly unto his spirit; and trusting
nothing to thy former studying or meditation, but saying to thyself in
great confidence of the divine promise, the Lord will give a word with
much power unto those that preach the Gospel."

SECT. II.

_But besides oral or vocal, there is silent worship among the
Quakers--Many meetings where not a word is said, and yet worship is
considered to have begun, and to be proceeding--Worship not necessarily
connected with words--This the opinion of other pious men besides
Quakers--Of Howe--Hales--Gell--Smaldridge, bishop of Bristol--Monro
--Advantages which the Quakers attach to their silent worship._

I have hitherto confined myself to those meetings of the Quakers, where
the minister is said to have received impressions from the Spirit of
God, with a desire of expressing them, and where, if he expresses them,
he ought to deliver them to the congregation as the pictures of his
will; and this, as accurately as the mirror represents the object that
is set before it. There are times, however, as I mentioned in the last
section, when either no impressions may be said to be felt, or, if any
are felt, there is no concomitant impulse to utter them. In this case
no person attempts to speak: for to speak or to pray, where the heart
feels no impulse to do it, would be, in the opinion of the Quakers, to
mock God, and not to worship him in spirit and in truth. They sit
therefore in silence, and worship in silence; and they not only remain
silent the whole time of their meetings, but many meetings take place,
and these sometimes in succession, when not a word is uttered.

Michael de Molinos, who was chief of the sect of the Quietists, and
whose "Spiritual Guide" was printed at Venice in 1685, speaks thus:
"There are three kinds of silence; the first is of words, the second of
desires, and the third of thoughts. The first is perfect; the second is
more perfect; and the third is most perfect. In the first, that is, of
words, virtue is acquired. In the second, namely, of desires, quietness
is attained. In the third, of thoughts, internal recollection is gained.
By not speaking, not desiring, and not thinking, one arrives at the
true and perfect mystical silence, where God speaks with the soul,
communicates himself to it, and in the abyss of its own depth, teaches
it the most perfect and exalted wisdom."

Many people of other religious societies, if they were to visit the
meetings of the Quakers while under their silent worship, would be apt
to consider the congregation as little better than stocks or stones, or
at any rate as destitute of that life and animation which constitute the
essence of religion. They would have no idea that a people were
worshipping God, whom they observed to deliver nothing from their lips.
It does not follow, however, because nothing is said, that God is not
worshipped. The Quakers, on the other hand, contend, that these silent
meetings form the sublimest part of their worship. The soul, they say,
can have intercourse with God. It can feel refreshment, joy, and
comfort, in him. It can praise and adore him; and all this, without the
intervention of a word.

This power of the soul is owing to its constitution or nature. "It
follows, says the learned Howe, in his 'Living Temple,' that having
formed this his more excellent creature according to his own more
express likeness; stampt it with the more glorious characters of his
living image; given it a nature suitable to his own, and thereby made it
capable of rational and intelligent converse with him, he hath it even
in his power to maintain a continual converse with this creature, by
agreeable communications, by letting in upon it the vital beams and
influences of his own light and love, and receiving back the return of
its grateful acknowledgments and praises: wherein it is manifest he
should do no greater thing than he hath done. For who sees not that it
is a matter of no greater difficulty to converse with, than to make a
reasonable creature? Or who would not be ashamed to deny, that he who
hath been the only author of the soul of man, and of the excellent
powers and faculties belonging to it, can more easily sustain that which
he hath made, and converse with his creature suitably to the way,
wherein he hath made it capable of his converse?"

That worship may exist without the intervention of words, on account of
this constitution of the soul, is a sentiment which has been espoused by
many pious persons who were not Quakers. Thus, the ever memorable John
Hales, in his Golden Remains, expresses himself: "Nay, one thing I know
more, that the prayer which is the most forcible, transcends, and far
exceeds, all power of words. For St. Paul, speaking unto us of the most
effectual kind of prayer, calls it sighs and groans, that cannot be
expressed. Nothing cries so loud in the ears of God, as the sighing of a
contrite and earnest heart."

"It requires not the voice, but the mind; not the stretching of the
hands, but the intention of the heart; not any outward shape or carriage
of the body, but the inward behaviour of the understanding. How then can
it slacken your worldly business and occasions, to mix them with sighs
and groans, which are the most effectual prayer?"

Dr. Gell, before quoted, says--"Words conceived only in an earthly mind,
and uttered out of the memory by man's voice, which make a noise in the
ears of flesh and blood, are not, nor can be accounted a prayer, before
our father which is in Heaven."

Dr. Smaldridge, bishop of Bristol, has the following expressions in his
sermons: "Prayer doth not consist either in the bending of our knees, or
the service of our lips, or the lifting up of our hands or eyes to
heaven, but in the elevation of our souls towards God. These outward
expressions of our inward thoughts are necessary in our public, and
often expedient in our private devotions; but they do not make up the
essence of prayer, which may truly and acceptably be performed, where
these are wanting."

And he says afterwards, in other parts of his work--"Devotion of mind is
itself a silent prayer, which wants not to be clothed in words, that God
may better know our desires. He regards not the service of our lips, but
the inward disposition of our hearts."

Monro, before quoted, speaks to the same effect, in his Just Measures of
the Pious Institutions of Youth. "The breathings of a recollected soul
are not noise or clamour. The language in which devotion loves to vent
itself, is that of the inward man, which is secret and silent, but yet
God hears it, and makes gracious returns unto it. Sometimes the pious
ardours and sensations of good souls are such as they cannot clothe with
words. They feel what they cannot express. I would not, however, be
thought to insinuate, that the voice and words are not to be used at
all. It is certain that public and common devotions cannot be performed
without them; and that even in private, they are not only very
profitable, but sometimes necessary. What I here aim at is, that the
youth should be made sensible, that words are not otherwise valuable
than as they are images and copies of what passes in the hidden man of
the heart; especially considering that a great many, who appear very
angelical in their devotions, if we take our measures of them from their
voice and tone, do soon, after these intervals of seeming seriousness
are over, return with the dog to the vomit, and give palpable evidences
of their earthliness and sensuality; their passion and their pride."

Again--"I am persuaded, says he, that it would be vastly advantageous
for the youth, if care were taken to train them up to this method of
prayer; that is, if they were taught frequently to place themselves in
the divine presence, and there silently to adore their Creator,
Redeemer, and Sanctifier. For hereby they would become habitually
recollected. Devotion would be their element; and they would know, by
experience, what our blessed Savour and his great Apostle meant, when
they enjoin us to pray without ceasing. It was, I suppose, by some such
method of devotion as I am now speaking of, that Enoch walked with God;
that Moses saw him that is invisible; that the royal Psalmist set the
Lord always before him; and that our Lord Jesus himself continued whole
nights in prayer to God. No man, I believe, will imagine that his
prayer, during all the space in which it is said to have continued, was
altogether vocal. When he was in his agony in the garden, he used but a
few words. His vocal prayer then consisted only of one petition, and an
act of pure resignation thrice repeated. But I hope all will allow,
that his devotion lasted longer than while he was employed in the
uttering a few sentences."

These meetings then, which are usually denominated silent, and in which,
though not a word be spoken, it appears from the testimony of others
that God may be truly worshipped, the Quakers consider as an important
and sublime part of their church service, and as possessing advantages
which are not to be found in the worship which proceeds solely through
the medium of the mouth.

For in the first place it must be obvious that, in these silent
meetings, men cannot become chargeable before God, either with hypocrisy
or falsehood, by pretending to worship him with their lips, when their
affections are far from him, or by uttering a language that is
inconsistent with the feelings of the heart.

It must be obvious, again, that every man's devotion, in these silent
meetings, is made, as it ought to be, to depend upon himself; for no man
can work out the salvation of another for him. A man does not depend at
these times on the words of a minister, or of any other person present;
but his own soul, worked upon by the divine influence, pleads in
silence with the Almighty its own cause. And thus, by extending this
idea to the congregation at large, we shall find a number of individuals
offering up at the same time their own several confessions; pouring out
their own several petitions; giving their own thanks severally, or
praising and adoring; all of them in different languages, adapted to
their several conditions, and yet not interrupting one another.

Nor is it the least recommendation of this worship, in the opinion of
the Quakers, that, being thus wholly spiritual, it is out of the power
of the natural man to obstruct it. No man can break the chains that thus
binds the spirit of man to the spirit of God; for this chain, which is
spiritual, is invisible. But this is not the case, the Quakers say, with
any oral worship. "For how, says Barclay, alluding to his own times, can
the Papists say their mass, if there be any there to disturb and
interrupt them? Do but take away the mass-book, the chalice, the host,
or the priest's garments; yea, do but spill the water, or the wine, or
blow out the candles, (a thing quickly to be done,) and the whole
business is marred, and no sacrifice can be offered. Take from the
Lutherans and Episcopalians their liturgy or common prayer-book, and no
service can be said. Remove from the Calvinists, Arminians, Socinians,
Independents, or Anabaptists, the pulpit, the bible, and the hourglass,
or make but such a noise as the voice of the preacher cannot be heard,
or disturb him but so before he come, or strip him of his bible or his
books, and he must be dumb: for they all think it an heresy to wait to
speak, as the spirit of God giveth utterance; and thus easily their
whole worship may be marred."

SECT. III.

_Quakers reject every thing formal, ostentatious, and spiritless, from
their worship--Ground on which their Meeting-houses stand, not
consecrated--The latter plain--Women sit apart from the men--No
Pews--nor priest's garments--nor psalmody--No one day thought more holy
than another--But as public worship is necessary, days have been fixed
upon for that purpose._

Jesus Christ, as he was sitting at Jacob's well, and talking with the
woman of Samaria, made use of the following, among other expressions, in
his discourse: "Woman, believe me, the hour cometh when ye shall
neither, in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.
But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship
the Father in spirit and in truth."

These expressions the Quakers generally render thus: I tell you that a
new dispensation is at hand. Men will no longer worship at Jerusalem
more acceptably than in any other place. Neither will it be expected of
them, that they shall worship in temples, like the temple there. Neither
the glory, nor the ornaments of gold and silver and precious stones, nor
the splendid garments of the High Priest, will be any parts of the new
worship that is approaching. All ceremonies will be done away, and men's
religion will be reduced simply to the worshipping of God in spirit and
in truth. In short, the Quakers believe, that, when Jesus came, he ended
the temple, its ornaments, its music, its Levitical priesthood, its
tithes, its new moons, and sabbaths, and the various ceremonial
ordinances that had been engrafted into the religion of the Jews.

The Quakers reject every thing that appears to them to be superstitious,
or formal, or ceremonious, or ostentatious, or spiritless, from their
worship.

They believe that no ground can be made holy; and therefore they do not
allow the places on which their Meeting-houses are built to be
consecrated by the use of any human forms.

Their Meeting-houses are singularly plain. There is nothing of
decoration in the interior of them. They consist of a number of plain
long benches with backs to them; There is one elevated seat at the end
of these. This is for their ministers. It is elevated for no other
reason, than that their ministers may be the better heard. The women
occupy one half of these benches, and sit apart from the men.

These benches are not intersected by partitions. Hence there are no
distinct pews for the families of the rich, or of such as can afford to
pay for them: for in the first place, the Quakers pay nothing for their
seats in their Meeting-houses; and, in the second, they pay no respect
to the outward condition of one another. If they consider themselves,
when out of doors, as all equal to one another in point of privileges,
much more do they abolish all distinctions, when professedly assembled
in a place of worship. They sit therefore in their Meeting-houses
undistinguished with respect to their outward circumstances, [138]as the
children of the same great parent, who stand equally in need of his
assistance; and as in the sight of Him who is no respecter of persons,
but who made of one blood all the nations of men who dwell on all the
face of the earth.

[Footnote 138: Spiritual officers, such as elders and overseers, sit at
the upper part of the Meeting-house.]

The Quaker ministers are not distinguishable, when in their places of
worship, by their dress. They wear neither black clothes, nor surplices,
nor gowns, nor bands. Jesus Christ, when he preached to the multitude,
is not recorded to have put on a dress different from that which he wore
on other occasions. Neither do the Quakers believe that ministers of the
church ought, under the new dispensation, to be a separate people, as
the Levites were, or to be distinguished on account of their office from
other men.

The Quakers differ from other Christians in the rejection of psalmody,
as a service of the church. If persons feel themselves so influenced in
their private devotions, [139]that they can sing, as the Apostle says,
"with the spirit and the understanding," or "can sing[140] and make
melody in their hearts to the Lord," the Quakers have no objection to
this as an act of worship. But they conceive that music and psalmody,
though they might have been adapted to the ceremonial religion of the
Jews, are not congenial with the new dispensation that has followed;
because this dispensation requires, that all worship should be performed
in spirit and in truth. It requires that no act of religion should take
place, unless the spirit influences an utterance, and that no words
should be used, except they are in unison with the heart. Now this
coincidence of spiritual impulse and feeling with this act, is not
likely to happen, in the opinion of the Quakers, with public psalmody.
It is not likely that all in the congregation will be impelled, in the
same moment, to a spiritual song, or that all will be in the state of
mind or spirit which the words of the psalm describe. Thus how few will
be able to sing truly with David, if the following verse should be
brought before them: "As the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so
panteth my soul after thee, O God." To this it may be added, that where
men think about musical harmony or vocal tunes in their worship, the
amusement of the creature will be so mixed with it, that it cannot be a
pure oblation of the Spirit, and that those who think they can please
the Divine Being by musical instruments, or the varied modulations of
their own voices, must look upon him as a Being with corporeal organs,
sensible, like a man, of fleshly delights, and not as a Spirit, who can
only be pleased with the worship that is in spirit and in truth.

[Footnote 139: 1 Cor. 14. 15.]

[Footnote 140: Ephes. 5. 19.]

The Quakers reject also the consecration and solemnization of particular
days and times. As the Jews, when they became Christians, were enjoined
by the Apostle Paul, not to put too great a value upon "days,[141] and
months, and times, and years;" so the Quakers think it their duty as
Christians to attend to the same injunction. They never meet upon saints
days, as such, that is, as days demanding the religious assemblings of
men, more than others; first, because they conceive this would be giving
into popish superstition; and secondly, because these days were
originally the appointment of men and not of God, and no human
appointment, they believe, can make one day holier than another.

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