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

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

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19

[Footnote 16: Job 32. 7.]

[Footnote 17: Nehemiah 9. 20.]

[Footnote 18: Psalm 25. 4.]

[Footnote 19: Jeremiah 10. 23.]

[Footnote 20: Acts 7. 51.]

[Footnote 21: John 6.44.45]

[Footnote 22: John 1. 9.]

[Footnote 23: i Cor. 12. 7.]

[Footnote 24: Titus 2. 11.]

The spirit of God, which has been thus given to man as a spiritual
guide, is considered by the Quakers as teaching him in various ways. It
inspires him with good thoughts. It prompts him to good offices. It
checks him in his way to evil. It reproves him while in the act of
committing it.

The learned Jeremy Taylor was of the same opinion. "The spirit of grace,
says he, is the spirit of wisdom, and teaches us by secret inspirations,
by proper arguments, by actual persuasions, by personal applications, by
effects and energies."

This office of the spirit is beautifully described by Monro, a divine of
the established church, in his just measures of the pious institutions
of youth, "The holy spirit, says he, speaks inwardly and immediately to
the soul. For God is a spirit. The soul is a spirit; and they converse
with one another in spirit, not by words, but by spiritual notices;
which, however, are more intelligible than the most eloquent strains in
the world. God makes himself to be heard by the soul by inward motions,
which it perceives and comprehends proportionably as it is voided and
emptied of earthly ideas. And the more the faculties of the soul cease
their own operations, so much the more sensible and intelligible are the
motions of God to it. These immediate communications from God with the
souls of men are denied and derided by a great many. But that the father
of spirits should have no converse with our spirits, but by the
intervention only of outward and foreign objects, may justly seem
strange, especially when we are so often told in holy scripture, that we
are the temples of the holy Ghost, and that God dwelleth in all good
men."

But this spirit is considered by the Quakers not only as teaching by
inward breathings, as it were, made immediately and directly upon the
heart without the intervention of outward circumstances, but as making
the material objects of the Universe, and many of the occurrences of
life, if it be properly attended to, subservient to the instruction of
man; and that it enlarges the sphere of his instruction in this manner,
in proportion as it is received and encouraged. Thus the man, who is
attentive to these divine notices, sees the animal, the vegetable, and
the planetary world, with spiritual eyes. He cannot stir abroad, but he
is taught in his own feelings, without any motion of his will, some
lesson for his spiritual advantage; or he perceives so vitally some of
the attributes of the divine being, that he is called upon to offer
some spiritual incense to his maker. If the lamb frolics and gambols in
his presence as he walks along, he may be made spiritually to see the
beauty and happiness of innocence. If he finds the stately oak laid
prostrate by the wind, he may be spiritually taught to discern the
emptiness of human power; while the same spirit may teach him inwardly
the advantage of humility, when he looks at the little hawthorn which
has survived the storm. When he sees the change and the fall of the
autumnal leaf, he may be spiritually admonished of his own change and
dissolution, and of the necessity of a holy life. Thus the spirit of God
may teach men by outward objects and occurrences in the world; but where
this spirit is away, or rather where it is not attended to, no such
lesson can be taught. Natural objects of themselves can excite only
natural ideas: and the natural man, looking at them, can derive only
natural pleasure, or draw natural conclusions from them. In looking at
the Sun, he may be pleased with its warmth, and anticipate its
advantages to the vegetable world. In plucking and examining a flower,
he may be struck with its beauty, its mechanism, and its fragrant smell.
In observing the butterfly, as it wings its way before him, he may smile
at its short journeys from place to place, and admire the splendour
upon its wings. But the beauty of Creation is dead to him, as far as it
depends upon connecting it spiritually with the character of God. For no
spiritual impression can arise from any natural objects, but through the
intervention of the spirit of God.

William Wordsworth, in his instructive poems, has described this
teaching by external objects in consequence of impressions from a higher
power, as differing from any teaching by books or the human
understanding, and as arising without any motion of the will of man, in
so beautiful and simple a manner, that I cannot do otherwise than make
an extract from them in this place. Lively as the poem is, to which I
allude, I conceive it will not lower the dignity of the subject. It is
called Expostulation and Reply, and is as follows:[25]

Why, William, on that old gray stone,
Thus for the length of half a day,
Why, William, sit you thus alone,
And dream your time away?

Where are your books? that light bequeath'd
To beings, else forlorn and blind,
Up! Up! and drink the spirit breath'd
From dead men to their kind.

You look round on your mother earth,
As if she for no purpose bore you,
As if you were her first-born birth,
And none had liv'd before you!

One morning thus by Esthwaite lake,
When life was sweet, I knew not why,
To me my good friend Matthew spake,
And that I made reply:

The eye it cannot choose but see.
We cannot bid the ear be still;
Our bodies feel where'er they be,
Against or with our will.

Nor less I deem that there are powers,
Which of themselves our minds impress,
That we can feed this mind of ours
In a wise passiveness.

Think you,'mid all this mighty sum
Of things for ever speaking,
That nothing of itself will come,
But we must still be seeking?

Then ask not wherefore, here, alone,
Conversing as I may,
I sit upon this old gray stone,
And dream my time away?

[Footnote 25: See Lyrical Ballads, Vol. 1. p. 1.]

CHAP. V

_This spirit was not only given to man as a teacher, but as a primary
and infallible guide--Hence the Scriptures are a subordinate or
secondary guide--Quakers, however, do not undervalue them on this
account--Their opinion concerning them._

The spirit of God, which we have seen to be thus given to men as a
spiritual teacher, and to act in the ways described, the Quakers usually
distinguish by the epithets of primary and infallible. But they have
made another distinction with respect to the character of this spirit;
for they have pronounced it to be the only infallible guide to men in
their spiritual concerns. From this latter declaration the reader will
naturally conclude, that the scriptures, which are the outward teachers
of men, must be viewed by the Quakers in a secondary light. This
conclusion has indeed been adopted as a proposition in the Quaker
theology; or, in other words, it is a doctrine of the society, that the
spirit of God is the primary and only infallible, and the scriptures but
a subordinate or secondary guide.

This proposition the Quakers usually make out in the following manner:

It is, in the first place, admitted by all Christians, that the
scriptures were given by inspiration, or that those who originally
delivered or wrote the several parts of them, gave them forth by means
of that spirit, which was given to them by God. Now in the same manner
as streams, or rivulets of water, are subordinate to the fountains
which produce them; so those streams or rivulets of light must be
subordinate to the great light from whence they originally sprung. "We
cannot, says Barclay, call the scriptures the principal fountain of all
truth and knowledge, nor yet the first adequate rule of faith and
manners; because the principal fountain of truth must be the truth
itself, that is, whose certainty and authority depend not upon another."

The scriptures are subordinate or secondary, again, in other points of
view. First, because, though they are placed before us, we can only know
or understand them by the testimony of the spirit. Secondly, because
there is no virtue or power in them of themselves, but in the spirit
from whence they came.

They are, again, but a secondary guide; because "that, says Barclay,
cannot be the only and principal guide, which doth not universally reach
every individual that needeth it." But the scriptures do not teach deaf
persons, nor children, nor idiots, nor an immense number of people, more
than half the Globe, who never yet saw or heard of them. These,
therefore, if they are to be saved like others, must have a different or
a more universal rule to guide them, or be taught from another source.

They are only a secondary guide, again, for another reason. It is an
acknowledged axiom among Christians, that the spirit of God is a perfect
spirit, and that it can never err. But the scriptures are neither
perfect of themselves as a collection, nor are they perfect in their
verbal parts. Many of them have been lost. Concerning those which have
survived, there have been great disputes. Certain parts of these, which
one Christian council received in the early times of the church, were
rejected as not canonical by another. Add to this, that none of the
originals are extant. And of the copies, some have suffered by
transcription, others by translation, and others by wilful mutilation,
to support human notions of religion; so that there are various readings
of the same passage, and various views of the same thing. "Now what,
says Barclay, would become of Christians, if they had not received that
spirit and those spiritual senses, by which they know how to discover
the true from the false? It is the privilege of Christ's sheep, indeed,
that they hear his voice, and refuse that of the stranger; which,
privilege being taken away, we are left a prey to all manner of wolves."
The scriptures, therefore, in consequence of the state in which they
have come down to us, cannot, the Quakers say, be considered to be a
guide as entirely perfect as the internal testimony of their great
author, the spirit of God.

But though the Quakers have thought it right, in submitting their
religious creed to the world on this subject, to be so guarded in the
wording of it as to make the distinction described, they are far from
undervaluing the scriptures on that account. They believe, on the other
hand, whatever mutilations they may have suffered, that they contain
sufficient to guide men in belief and practice; and that all internal
emotions, which are contrary to the declaration of these, are wholly
inadmissible. "Moreover, says Barclay, because the scriptures are
commonly acknowledged by all to have been written by the dictates of the
holy spirit, and that the errors, which may be supposed by the injury of
time to have slipt in, are not such but there is a sufficient clear
testimony left to all the essentials of the Christian faith, we do look
upon them as the only fit outward judge of controversies among
Christians, and that whatsoever doctrine is contrary to their testimony,
may therefore justly be rejected as false."

The Quakers believe also, that as God gave a portion of his spirit to
man to assist him inwardly, so he gave the holy scriptures to assist him
outwardly in his spiritual concerns. Hence the latter, coming by
inspiration, are the most precious of all books that ever were written,
and the best outward guide. And hence the things contained in them,
ought to be read, and, as far as possible, fulfilled.

They believe, with the apostle Paul, that the scriptures are highly
useful, "so that, through patience and comfort of them, they may have
hope; and also that they are profitable for reproof, for correction, and
for instruction in righteousness:" that in the same manner as land,
highly prepared and dressed by the husbandman, becomes fit for the
reception and for the promotion of the growth of the seed that is to be
placed in it, so the scriptures turn the attention of man towards God,
and by means of the exhortations, reproofs, promises, and threatenings,
contained in them, prepare the mind for the reception and growth of the
seed of the Holy Spirit.

They believe, again, that the same scriptures show more of the
particulars of God's will with respect to man, and of the scheme of the
Gospel-dispensation, than any ordinary portion of his spirit, as usually
given to man, would have enabled him to discover. They discover that
[26] "the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life
through Jesus Christ:" [27] "That Jesus Christ was set forth to be a
propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness
for the remission of sins that are past through the forbearance of
God;" [28]that "he tasted death for every man;" that he [29]was
"delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification;"
[30]that "he is set down at the right hand of the throne of God;"
[31] "and ever liveth to make intercession for us; and, that he is the
substance of all the types and figures under the Levitical priesthood,
[32] being the end of the law for righteousness to every one that
believeth."

[Footnote 26: Rom. 6. 23.]

[Footnote 27: Rom. 3. 25.]

[Footnote 28: Heb. 2. 9.]

[Footnote 29: 4. 25.]

[Footnote 30: Heb. 12. 2.]

[Footnote 31: Heb. 7. 25.]

[Footnote 32: Rom. 10. 4.]

They believe, again, that, in consequence of these various revelations,
as contained in the scriptures, they have inestimable advantages over
the Heathen nations, or over those, where the gospel-sun has never yet
shone; and that, as their advantages are greater, so more will be
required of them, or their condemnation will be greater, if they fail to
attend to those things which are clearly revealed.

They maintain, again, that their discipline is founded on the rules of
the gospel; and that in consequence of giving an interpretation
different from that of many others, to some of the expressions of Jesus
Christ, by which they conceive they make his kingdom more pure and
heavenly, they undergo persecution from the world--so that they confirm
their attachment to the scriptures by the best of all credible
testimonies, the seal of their own sufferings.

CHAP. VI.

_This spirit of God, which has been thus given to men as an infallible
guide in their spiritual concerns, has been given them universally--To
the patriarchs and Israelites, from the creation to the time of
Moses--To the Israelites or Jews, from Moses to Jesus Christ--To the
Gentile world from all antiquity to modern times--To all those who have
ever heard the gospel--And it continues its office to the latter even
at the present day._

The Quakers are of opinion that the spirit of God, of which a portion
has been given to men as a primary and infallible guide in their
spiritual concerns, has been given them universally; or has been given
to all of the human race, without any exceptions, for the same purpose.

This proposition of the Quakers I shall divide, in order that the reader
may see it more clearly, into four cases. The first of these will
comprehend the Patriarchs and the Israelites from the creation to the
time of Moses. The second, the Israelites or Jews from the time of Moses
to the coming of Jesus Christ. The third, the Gentiles or Heathens. And
the fourth, all those who have heard of the gospel of Jesus Christ, from
the time of his own ministry to the present day.

The first case includes a portion of time of above two thousand years.
Now the Quakers believe, that during all this time men were generally
enlightened as to their duty by the spirit of God; for there was no
scripture or written law of God during all this period. "It was about
two thousand four hundred years, says Thomas Beaven, an approved writer
among the Quakers, after the creation of the world, before mankind had
any external written law for the rule and conduct of their lives, so far
as appears by either sacred or profane history; in all which time
mankind, generally speaking, had only for their rule of faith and
manners the external creation as a monitor to their outward senses, for
evidence of the reality and certainty of the existence of the Supreme
Being; and the internal impressions God by his divine spirit made upon
the capacities and powers of their souls or inward man, and perhaps some
of them oral traditions delivered from father to son."

To the same point Thomas Beaven quotes the ever memorable John Hales,
who, in his golden remains, writes in the following manner: "The love
and favour, which it pleased God to bear our fathers before the law', so
far prevailed with him, as that without any books and writings, by
familiar and friendly conversing with them, and communicating himself
unto them, he made them receive and understand his laws, their inward
conceits and intellectuals being, after a wonderful manner, figured as
it were and charactered by his spirit, so that they could not but see
and consent unto, and confess the truth of them. Which way of
manifesting his will unto many other gracious privileges it had, above
that which in after ages came in place of it, had this added, that it
brought with it unto the man to whom it was made, a preservation against
all doubt and hesitancy, and a full assurance both who the author was,
and how far his intent and meaning reached. We who are their offspring
ought, as St. Chrysostom tells us, so to have demeaned ourselves, that
it might have been with us as it was with them, that we might have had
no need of writing, no other teacher but the spirit, no other books but
our hearts, no other means to have been taught the things of God."

That the spirit of God, as described by Thomas Beaven and the venerable
John Hales, was the great instructor or enlightener of man during the
period we are speaking of, the Quakers believe, from what they conceive
to be the sense of the holy scriptures on this subject. For in the first
place, they consider it as a position, deducible from the expressions of
Moses[33], that the spirit of God had striven with those of the
antediluvian world. They believe, therefore, that it was this spirit
(and because the means were adequate, and none more satisfactory to them
can be assigned) which informed Cain, before any written law existed,
and this even before the murder of his brother, that[34] "if he did
well, he should be accepted; but if not, sin should lie at his door."
The same spirit they conceive to have illuminated the mind of Seth, but
in a higher degree than ordinarily the mind of Enoch; for he is the
first, of whom it is recorded, that[35] "he walked with God." It is also
considered by the Quakers as having afforded a rule of conduct to those
who lived after the flood. Thus Joseph is described as saying, when
there is no record of any verbal instruction from the Almighty on this
subject, and at a time when there was no scripture or written law of
God, [36] "How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against
God?" It illuminated others also, but in a greater or less degree, as
before. Thus Noah became a preacher of righteousness. Thus Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob, were favoured with a greater measure of it than others
who lived in their own times.

[Footnote 33: Gen. 6.3]

[Footnote 34: Ib 4.7]

[Footnote 35: Gen. 5.24.]

[Footnote 36: Ib. 39.9.--The traditionary laws of Noah were in force at
this time; but they only specified three offences between man and man.]

From these times to the coming of Jesus Christ, which is the second of
the cases in question, the same spirit, according to the Quakers, still
continued its teachings, and this notwithstanding the introduction of
the Mosaic law; for this, which was engraven on tables of stone, did not
set aside the law that was engraven on the heart. It assisted, first,
outwardly, in turning mens' minds to God; and secondly, in fitting them
as a schoolmaster for attention to the internal impressions by his
spirit. That the spirit of God was still the great teacher, the Quakers
conceive to be plain; for the sacred writings from Moses to Malachi
affirm it for a part of the period now assigned; and for the rest we
have as evidence the reproof of the Martyr Stephen, and the sentences
from the New Testament quoted in the fourth chapter. And in the same
manner as this spirit had been given to some in a greater measure than
to others, both before and after the deluge, so the Quakers believe it
to have been given more abundantly to Moses and the prophets, than to
others of the same nation; for they believe that the law in particular,
and that the general writings of Moses, and those of the prophets also,
were of divine inspiration, or the productions of the spirit of God.

With respect to the Heathens or Gentiles, which is the third case, the
Quakers believe that God's holy spirit became a guide also to them, and
furnished them, as it had done the patriarchs and the Jews, with a rule
of practice. For even these, who had none of the advantages of scripture
or of a written divine law, believed, many of them, in God, such as
Orpheus, Hesiod, Thales, Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Cicero, and
others. And of these it may be observed, that it was their general
belief, as well as it was the belief of many others in those days, that
there was a divine light or spirit in man, to enable him to direct
himself aright.

Among the remnants that have been preserved of the sayings, of
Pythagoras, are the following which relate to this subject: "Those
things which are agreeable to God, cannot be known, except a man hear
God himself." Again--"But having overcome these things, thou shalt know
the cohabitation or dwelling together of the immortal God and mortal
man. His work is life--The work of God is immortality, eternal life."
"The most excellent thing, says Timoeus, that the soul is awakened to,
is her guide or good genius; but if she be rebellious to it, it will
prove her daemon, or tormentor."

"It was frequently said of Socrates, he had the guide of his life within
him, which, it was told his father Sophroniscus, would be of more worth
to him than five hundred masters. He called it his good angel, or
spirit; that it suggested to his mind what was good and virtuous, and
inclined and disposed him to a strict and pious life; that it furnished
him with divine knowledge, and impelled him very often to speak publicly
to the people, sometimes in a way of severe reproof, at other times to
information."

Plato says, "the light and spirit of God are as wings to the soul, or as
that which raiseth up the soul into, a sensible communion with God above
the world."

"I have, says Seneca, a more clear and certain light, by which I may
judge the truth from falsehood: that which belongs to the happiness of
the soul, the eternal mind will direct to." Again--"It is a foolish
thing for thee to wish for that which thou canst not obtain. God is near
thee, and he is in thee. The good spirit sits or resides within as, the
observer of our good and evil actions. As he is dealt with by us, he
dealeth with us."

The Quakers produce these, and a multitude of other quotations, which it
is not necessary to repeat, to show that the same spirit, which taught
the patriarchs before the law, and the Jews after it, taught the
Gentiles also. But this revelation, or manifestation of the spirit, was
not confined, in the opinion of the Quakers, to the Roman or Greek
philosophers, or to those who had greater pretensions than common to
human wisdom. They believe that no nation was ever discovered, among
those of antiquity, to have been so wild or ignorant as not to have
acknowledged a divinity, or as not to have known and established a
difference between good and evil.

Cicero says, "there is no country so barbarous, no one of all men so
savage, as that some apprehension of the Gods hath not tinctured his
mind. That many indeed, says he, think corruptly of them, must be
admitted; but this is the effect of vicious custom. For all do believe
that there is a divine power and nature."

Maximus Tyriensis, a platonic philosopher, and a man of considerable
knowledge, observes, that "notwithstanding the great contention and
variety of opinions which have existed concerning the nature and essence
of God, yet the law and reason of every country are harmonious in these
respects, namely, that there is one God, the king and father of all--and
that the many are but servants and co-rulers unto God: that in this the
Greek and the Barbarian, the Islander and the inhabitant of the
continent, the wise and the foolish, speak the same language. Go, says
he, to the utmost bounds of the ocean, and you find God there. But if
there hath been, says he, since the existence of time, two or three
atheistical, vile, senseless individuals, whose eyes and ears deceive
them, and who are maimed in their very soul, an irrational and barren
species, as monstrous as a lion without courage, an ox without horns, or
a bird without wings, yet out of these you will be able to understand
something of God. For they know and confess him whether they will or
not."

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19