The People Called Quakers

Elton Trueblood

• Publisher: Friends United Press
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781956149098
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Denominations

I /The Quaker Explosion

The rise of the people called Quakers is one of the memorable events in the history of man.

GEORGE BANCROFT

There are not many popular images which are more distorted than that of Quakers. According to the popular conception, Quakers are an exceedingly mild and harmless people, largely given to silence, totally unaggressive, with a religion that is neither evangelical in content nor evangelistic in practice. It is generally understood that the appearance of Quakers has something of the benign character of the man pictured on the Quaker Oats box, and many identify Quakers with contemporary "plain people.” Even those who realize that there have been changes in dress and manner of life still suppose that Quakers are prudent in all their ways and moderate in all their views. It is understood that they are good and kind, but also ineffective. Above all, it is believed that Quakerism is a faith which, being essentially antique, is irrelevant to the life of modern men and women. Many, who hear of the Quaker faith, are not sure whether it is Christian, and few look upon it as a live option for themselves today. Some even believe that Quakerism is something into which it is necessary for people to be born.

The important thing to say about this image is that it is erroneous at almost every point. The conventional image has little fidelity in relation to contemporary Quakers, while it has none at all in relation to the Quakers of three hundred years ago, when the Movement was marked by an amazing vitality. It is important, in the cause of truth, to set the record straight and to this end, this and subsequent chapters are devoted. It is necessary to correct a false image, if Quakerism is to have any relevance to the needs and perplexities of contemporary men and women. Not many will pay serious attention to Quakerism, or see it as a live option, if they think of Quakers as a queer little sect, marked, indeed, by the integrity which gives credence to the commercial advertisements in which the name Quaker appears, but also marked by insipidity.

In counteracting the erroneous stereotype, there is some help from an unexpected quarter, namely, humor. The Quaker jokes, which are numerous and much admired, are genuinely helpful, since nearly all of them secure their point by an unexpected turn of events, in which the supposed softness of the Quaker is shown to be either deceptive or nonexistent. Good as the jokes are, however, the only adequate corrective to the false Quaker image is that which is produced by direct confrontation with the explosive life of the earliest Friends, which often comes as a shock to the modern inquirer.

The Quaker explosion occurred during the forty exciting years between 1650 and 1690. In this period, Quakerism began in England and spread rapidly to various parts of the world, including most of the English colonies on the western shore of the Atlantic Ocean. Starting from nothing, or almost nothing, first in the experience of George Fox and then in that of those who were enkindled by his brightly burning fire, Quakerism was, for a while, the fastest-growing movement of the Western world. Thousands of Quakers, both men and women, suffered cruel imprisonment; many were whipped and beaten; and four, including one woman, were hanged on Boston Common. Nearly all, in spite of wide differences of ability and of education, engaged in preaching to anyone who would listen, and even some jailers were convinced by the persuasiveness of the message. Kings were addressed; governments were influenced; books and pamphlets were published in fantastic numbers. Whatever else Quakers were, they were not a harmless sect. If they had been such, the persecution, even in a savage age, would have been incomprehensible. The great mark of the new Movement was an undoubted dynamism. If we could know what sort of message produced such dynamism, we should know something truly important and perhaps something relevant to our own sorely troubled time. Since human needs have not changed, in spite of changes in technology, it is wholly possible that the message relevant to one time may, if it is truly understood, be seen as relevant to another.

First of all, then, the thoughtful reader must understand that the Quaker Movement, at its inception and for a full forty years thereafter, presented many of the characteristics of a cultural and religious storm. Far from being moderate, the first Quakers exhibited the kind of “excessiveness” which Professor Whitehead has assured us is “a necessary element in all greatness.”¹ The truly moderate man is not likely to achieve very much, but this was not the Quaker danger. Whatever the theological spectrum was, Quakers were not in the middle of it. This is what Harold Loukes means by saying that the Quaker theme is the “extreme statement of the Reformation.”² One evidence of the extreme character of Quakerism was the fact that the new breed of preachers were disturbers of the peace. They spoke in church services where they had captive audiences, they shocked officials by treating them as equals rather than with obsequious manners, they treated women as the equals of men, they sang in prison, and they made an effective witness behind prison walls.

Far from separating themselves from the world, the first Quakers established one important colony and were influential members of legislatures in several others. Indeed, the English colonies in America were so deeply affected by the Quaker Movement that one cannot understand their story apart from some reference to the new faith. Not only was Pennsylvania established as a Quaker experiment in government; Quaker influence was earlier significant in at least three other colonies. In Rhode Island, Quaker governors held office for thirty-six successive terms. Robert Barclay, the greatest of the early Quaker thinkers, was appointed the first governor of East Jersey. In North Carolina, with a Quaker, John Archdale, as Governor, Quakers controlled at one time half of all of the seats in the Assembly.

The influence on the world and the attempt to redress evils by vigorous action did not end with the first or classic period. Quakers were the first people of the Western world to make a direct assault on the institution of slavery, with the result that, sixty years before the Emancipation Proclamation, there was not one Quaker slave-holder in America. The Quaker grandparents of living people underwent great personal risks, in the middle of the nineteenth century, in conducting the underground railroad, secretly conveying slaves from the Border States to the Canadian frontier.

The recitation of such facts gives us a start on the correction of the generally accepted image, but we reach a deeper understanding of the contrast when we begin to acquaint ourselves with the language of the first Quakers, as preserved in their flood of writings. We are soon aware of a style of life in which there was terrific gusto, uninhibited by the fear of seeming extreme. Quakers did not hesitate, for example, to speak of their Movement as “Primitive Christianity Revived.” The recognition of the danger of immodesty seems to have played absolutely no part in the early nomenclature. Thus, there was no hesitation, among the early Quakers, particularly the dynamic men of the north of England, in calling themselves “First Publishers of the Truth.” Another immodest name was “Children of the Light,” such language being adapted boldly from the New Testament (I Thess. 5:5, Luke 16:8, John 12:36, Eph. 5:8). Even the word “Friends,” which later developed into an official name, “The Religious Society of Friends,” was an adaptation of the words of Christ, “I have called you friends” (John 15:15).

Because of the long-standing Quaker emphasis on the sinfulness of war, an emphasis in which Quakers were, for a while, unique, though they are so no longer, many of our own day picture the Quakers as wholly nonmilitant in mood. It is really shocking to such persons to learn how far from the truth this conception is. The early Quakers, being steeped in the language of the New Testament, and therefore familiar with the military metaphors with which the New Testament abounds, did not hesitate to employ them. Knowing the Epistles as they did, they felt no embarrassment in speaking of “the breastplate of faith and love," or “for an helmet, the hope of salvation” (I Thess. 5:8). When they were thrown into foul prisons, it helped them immensely to remember one who had said, “Endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ” (II Tim. 2:3). Militant language was so congenial to Quakers in general that they tended to refer to their entire struggle as the “Lamb’s War.” Such was, indeed, the title of a book by the most eloquent and most maligned of all first-generation Quakers, James Nayler. This reference was also Biblical, being based on Revelation 17:14.

Perhaps the strangest part of the present distorted image of Quakers is the idea that Quakers are excessively reticent and therefore uninterested in making converts. There may be such Quakers today, but it is doubtful if there was one such in the first forty years of the Quaker explosion. All tried to make converts and they tried all of the time. The clarity of Robert Barclay on this point is indicated by his unapologetic defense of proselytizing when he wrote, “We desire therefore all that come among us to be proselyted.”³ They even took the opportunities provided by fairs and by wrestling matches. Any situation was a proper one in the Lamb’s War.

Closely allied to the notion that Quakerism is intrinsically unevangelistic is the equally erroneous notion that Quakerism is not tied to the Christian heritage. Some even suppose that Quakerism is a kind of religion-in-general, without a direct commitment to Jesus Christ. There may, indeed, be living Quakers who feel this way about it, but their position is not even remotely similar to that of Friends in the period of greatest dynamism. Not only were the earliest Quakers conscious of commitment to Jesus Christ; the same has been true of the mainstream of Quakers ever since and is certainly true of the majority of those who call themselves Quakers today. Even in his lifetime, Fox felt the necessity to take cognizance of the rumor or slander that the movement which stemmed from his preaching was not specifically Christian. This caused him, in 1671, to write in his Journal:

Whereas many scandalous lies and slanders have been cast upon us, to render us odious; as that we do deny God, and Christ Jesus, and the Scriptures of truth, etc. This is to inform you that all our books and declarations, which for these many years have been published to the world, do clearly testify the contrary.

One of the best evidences that the image which Fox and his associates conveyed to their contemporaries was a dynamic one, is that provided by the nickname Quaker, which, though originally given as an intended insult, has long been proudly adopted. That it was already accepted gladly and without apology by the end of the classic period is shown by the fact that William Penn, when he wrote his famous Preface to the official edition of the Journal of George Fox, called his story “The Rise and Progress of the People Called Quakers," thus using the phrase already used by Barclay in his Apology. The nickname Quaker was really an unintended compliment. It was a way of admitting that these people were not insipid, but were, instead, the movers and shakers of the established order. Such was the meaning of Thomas Carlyle when, in referring to Fox when making his famous suit of leather, with his own crude instruments, he wrote:

Stitch away, thou noble Fox: every prick of that little instrument is pricking into the heart of Slavery, and World-worship, and the Mammon-god. Thy elbows jerk, as in strong swimmer-strokes, and every stroke is bearing thee across the Prison-ditch, within which Vanity holds her Workhouse and Ragfair, into lands of true Liberty; were the work done, there is in broad Europe one Free Man, and thou art he.⁴

Fox, thought Carlyle, could not be satisfied with conventional satisfactions and rewards, because his life was profoundly shaken.

There are two early accounts of the origin of the name Quaker, one in the Journal of George Fox and another in Barclay's Apology, Though not identical, they bear equal witness to the fact that the faith of early Friends so took hold of them that they actually seemed to be shaken. “The priest scoffed at us," wrote Fox, “and called us Quakers. But the Lord's power was so over them, and the word of life was declared in such authority and dread to them, that the priest began trembling himself; and one of the people said, Took how the priest trembles and shakes, he is turned a Quaker also.'"⁵ According to Fox, the first individual who called the members of the new Movement Quakers was Justice Bennet of Derby. He coined the term, Fox reported, “because we bid them tremble at the word of the Lord. This was in the year 1650.” Though there was once a time when members of the Movement preferred to be called Friends, there is a growing tendency, in the latter half of the twentieth century, to accept the opprobrious nickname and even to rejoice in it. This is particularly true as we leave off vestiges of the quietistic period and understand better the extreme vitality of the original Movement. Contemporary Friends are not ashamed of the fact that they are part of a Movement in which men and women were once so shaken that they trembled; on the contrary, they are becoming ashamed of the fact that they are so little shaken themselves. It is hard, for example, to read the words of Robert Barclay, describing his own experience of three centuries ago, without interpreting them as a standing challenge to subsequent lack of the power to which he bore witness.

For not a few have come to be convinced of the truth after this manner, of which I myself, in part, am a true witness, who not by strength of arguments, or by a particular disquisition of each doctrine, and convincement of my understanding thereby, came to receive and bear witness of the truth, but by being secretly reached by this life; for when I came into the silent assemblies of God's people, I felt a secret power among them, which touched my heart, and as I gave way unto it, I found the evil weakening in me, and the good raised up, and so I became thus knit and united unto them, hungering more and more after the increase of this power and life, whereby I might feel myself perfectly redeemed. And indeed this is the surest way to become a Christian, to whom afterwards the knowledge and understanding of principles will not be wanting, but will grow up so much as is needful, as the natural fruit of this good root.⁶

These people, in this amazing phenomenon, were not trying to set up a new church or a denomination, for such an aim would have seemed to them to be low and unworthy. Since it was their intention to be universal rather than sectarian, they called all men. What is amazing in the light of contemporary aims, is the ambitiousness of their expectations. Indeed, they expected nothing less than the transformation of the whole nation. Even beyond this, they confidently hoped to reach men all over the world. “The field is the world," they read in Matthew 13:38, and they believed it.

The boldness of the vision, which had so much to do with the willingness to face persecution, as well as the passionate evangelization, is expressed in Penn's account of the vision which came to Fox on Pendle Hill in 1652. “H...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• 1. The Quaker Explosion
• 2. The Achievement Of George Fox
• 3. The Quaker Aristocrats
• 4. The Heart Of The Quaker Faith
• 5. Reality In Worship
• 6. A Practical Alternative To Clergy And Laity
• 7. A Sacramental World
• 8. The Genius Of John Woolman
• 9. The Gurneys Of Earlham
• 10. The Struggle For Peace
• 11. Quaker Writers
• 12. The Life Of Culture
• 13. The Penetration Of The World
• 14. The Quaker Vocation
• Appendix
• Index