The Rich Heritage of Quakerism

Walter R. Williams

• Publisher: Papamoa Press
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9781789123418
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

In this book, which was first published in 1962, Walter R. Williams presents a picture of the courage, faith, devotion, and sacrifice that have been displayed throughout the history of Quakerism. Biographical sketches of Quaker leaders challenge the reader to Christian integrity and selfless service. The principles of Quakerism and their influence on society are evident in this carefully researched history of the movement.

1—George Fox—A Man Chosen of God

It was a fair day in the month of May, 1652. George Fox, a tall, robust young man in his late twenties, stood at the 1830-foot summit of Pendle Hill, a bare moorland ridge on the borders of Lancashire and Yorkshire in Northern England. He had completed the long climb to this high vantage point after no little expenditure of energy.

There he stood, bathing face and lungs with the invigorating air, and scanning the widespread, undulating view below him. To the south, the countryside was dotted with quiet towns beyond which hung a hazy cloud of smoke above the city of Manchester. In the distant west the waters of the Irish Sea were in clear view. Eastward lay the rough terrain of the West Riding over which he and his fellow-laborer had just come, and where, in the churches, they had sought opportunity to speak the message of God despite frequent rough abuse at the hands of enraged priests and people. To the north-west could be seen the country town of Lancaster, east of which stretched the valley of the River Lune, studded here and there with towns and villages. This northern district seemed to invite him thither and kindle in his heart the hope of “a great people waiting to be gathered.”

George Fox had a deep concern to help men find a genuine religious experience. He, himself, had found the living Christ, and was learning the precious lessons of trust and obedience. With the passing of the months and years since that great discovery, he had been seeking to acquaint others with a knowledge of the truth. The winning of souls to Christ was now his one consuming passion. The urge of God’s Spirit was upon him; indeed, that was the reason for his coming into this part of Northern England. There, on his mount of vision, he tarried for a time keenly conscious that God was with him and was drawing him to service in that area.

Then, with heart aflame, Fox made the long descent to the foot of Pendle Hill and, rejoining his companion, Richard Farnsworth, he declared God’s message to the inn-keeper where the two men took lodging for the night.

Later that same night, God spoke to George Fox, giving him yet more specific direction and guidance regarding his next move. In his Journal we read:

The Lord opened unto me, and let me see a great people in white raiment by a riverside, coming to the Lord.{1}

Here was a chosen vessel, a prophet of God, now receiving commission to launch out into a wider and more fruitful field of ministry, with renewed assurance of the Spirit’s leading. Into the River Lune area he would go—a man sent from God.

We shall better understand George Fox, his mission and his message, if we first give brief attention to his childhood and early life, the spiritual wrestlings of his youth, the gracious revelation of the Living Christ to his own heart, and his subsequent fearless witness to the new-found joy during the few years just previous to his Pendle Hill vision. It will be well, too, if we may understand the temper of the times religiously, at the period when Fox lived and labored.

Childhood and Youth

George Fox was born in the summer of 1624, at the small village of Fenny Drayton (or Drayton-on-the-Clay, as it was then called) in Leicestershire, Central England. His father, Christopher Fox, was a weaver by trade, a trusted church-warden, highly respected by his neighbors and commonly called “righteous Christer.” His mother, Mary Lago, came of a good family, “of the stock of the martyrs.” Both parents seem to have been devout, consistent Christians. George was one of a family of several children. He was sensitive and serious in disposition. At the early age of eleven he experienced a religious crisis which effected a real change in his boyhood life. He later wrote as follows:

I knew pureness and righteousness, for while I was a child I was taught how to walk to be kept pure. The Lord taught me to be faithful in all things, and to act faithfully two ways, viz., inwardly to God, and outwardly to man...and that my words should be few and savory, seasoned with grace, and that I might not eat and drink to make myself wanton, but for health....{2}

Very evidently, young George Fox early learned self-discipline, and laid the foundations for a healthy body and mind which he would sorely need for enduring the hardships of future years.

In the minds of some members of his family, there was serious thought that he should be trained for the ministry. However, other counsels prevailed and, while yet of tender years, he was apprenticed to a shoemaker, a man who also kept sheep and dealt in wool. George Fox learned the trade of shoemaking, and later followed it for some time at Mansfield. William Penn, writing of Fox, indicates that he was particularly fond of caring for sheep, “an employment that very much suited his mind in several respects, both for its innocency and solitude, and was a just figure of his after ministry and service.”

George Fox early learned to guard his words and to speak only the truth. He was laughed at sometimes for his honesty and careful avoidance of evil. He had a keen mind, but never had the privilege of formal schooling. However, he had learned to read, and, as the years passed, he acquired a rather surprising and generally adequate education. He read books on many subjects. He was a constant and careful student of the Bible. He gained such familiarity with its contents that it has been said, were the Bible destroyed, Fox could have rewritten most of it from memory. He made use of several translations of the Bible. His favorite was the Geneva Version, though he used the King James Version more generally.

From early childhood, George Fox regularly attended the local parish church in company with his parents. This habit continued until he was about nineteen years of age, when in disappointment, confusion, and spiritual unrest, he stopped going—this to the great concern of his devout parents. During the ensuing months he spent much time in solitude at home, or in the open country, often reading his Bible. He was distressed and confused by the seeming inconsistency of professing Christians. The Puritan neighbors whom he knew, professed Christianity, but seemed to live as worldlings. Did Christian faith result in no transformation of life? He knew that the Holy Scriptures called upon the penitent sinner to break with sin, and live a righteous and holy life; yet the preachers were ever “pleading for sin and imperfection” so long as men live in the world. Fox had an ever-deepening conviction that genuine religion ought to make bad people good. Was there not someone who could help him resolve the distressing questions which were haunting his mind?

He began asking questions of Baptists and other Separatists with whom he came in contact. He sought out the priests and prominent lay-leaders of the churches. Yet, he found none able to help him. So great became his distress of mind that he knew not what to do. Then, one day while he was on business at a market town, a cousin of his and another young man—both professing Christians—invited him to help them drink a jug of beer. It was soon evident that they would drink to excess, and in disgust Fox rose from the table saying: “If it be so, I will leave you,” and he was gone. He later wrote of this incident thus:

I returned home, but did not go to bed that night, nor could I sleep, but sometimes walked up and down, and sometimes prayed and cried to the Lord, who said to me: “Thou seest how young people go together into vanity, and old people into the earth: thou must forsake all, both young and old...and be a stranger unto all.”{3}

His hour of decision had come. George Fox, now nineteen years of age, in mid-summer, 1643, bade farewell to his family and became, in very truth, “a stranger unto all.” This he did in the belief that God had so commanded him.

Hunger after God

The next three or four years were fraught with loneliness and suffering for this young man. He would stay for some weeks or months in one city or town, and then go forward—perhaps to some other county or area. It appears that he had some source of income during these wanderings, whether by earnings from personal labor or otherwise; for he writes: “I had wherewith both to keep myself from being chargeable to others, and to administer something to the necessities of others.”{4} At first, being unwilling to talk with people regarding his own soul-hunger, he avoided making intimate friends of any. There were times when he was strongly tempted to despair. But he continued to read his Bible, to walk in solitary places alone, and to wait upon the Lord. In course of time he came as far as the City of London and made contact with an uncle who resided there, and who treated him kindly; yet Fox did not feel free to open his heart and speak of his deepest concerns.

The next year he was back at his parents’ home for some time, having regard for the anxiety which they felt for him. Their pastor, the learned Nathaniel Stevens, gave considerable time and effort to help the young man, but was not able to be of any real aid. Fox, growing more bold, now began to seek out prominent churchmen and to go to them with his questions. Some of them were sympathetic and eager to help him; others, with closed minds, rebuffed him. He found one minister “angry and pettish.” The old priest at Coventry flew into a rage when Fox unintentionally stepped on his flower-bed. Another minister advised him to “smoke tobacco and sing psalms.” Some of his relatives suggested that he marry and settle down. Yet, others thought his best course would be to join the army.

The weeks extended into months; the months, into years; yet his hunger for God was not satisfied, and most of his original questions were still unanswered. However, God was supervising his school of affliction, and was slowly, but surely leading this young man into a deep, life-long conviction that it is not the outward label of church membership or profession, but the inner belief of the heart, that makes one a Christian: that it is the passing from a state of spiritual death to one of spiritual life which enrolls one’s name in the Lamb’s Book of Life: not man’s performance of rites and ceremonies, but a God-wrought miracle in his soul. Then, the day finally came, after he had become fully convinced that no priest, or other religious leader, could help him, that the Lord Jesus graciously revealed Himself. Let Fox depict the experience in his own way:

I saw that there was none among them all that could speak to my condition. When all my hopes in them, and in all men, were gone, so that I had nothing outwardly to help me, nor could I tell what to do: then, O! then I heard a voice which said, “THERE IS ONE, EVEN CHRIST JESUS, THAT CAN SPEAK TO THY CONDITION,” and when I heard it, my heart did leap for joy.{5}

Out of this remarkable experience came the central message of Friends: The living, eternal Christ is able to speak to the condition of every humble, seeking soul.

A Joyous Finder

George Fox was now twenty-three years of age. He was no longer a weary, heart-hungry seeker, but a joyous finder. He now had good news to tell others. In his heart the Light of the World was shining. The eternal Christ, who had suffered in Jerusalem, now dwelt in his heart, and the same provision was available to all. He must hasten to tell others.

About him were many who yearned for a satisfying experience with God, and some of them listened eagerly to his testimony. One by one these began to find the same glad reality. Surely Christ, Himself, had come to teach them. With the passing of the months, small groups of these began gathering for fellowship and further teaching, and Fox was looked to as their leader. It appears that during the ensuing three-year period he labored part-time at his trade as a shoemaker, all the while bearing glad witness to the saving and upholding power of Christ, and sharing with others the new “openings” of truth which, from time to time, the Holy Spirit was giving him. A goodly number of the Baptists, Independents, and Ranters living in Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, and Derbyshire, accepted the truth which he proclaimed. These small groups of believers first called themselves “Children of Light” and “Friends of Truth.” One member of the group which formed near Mansfield in 1648 was Elizabeth Hooten who was to become the first woman minister of the gospel among Friends.

A Fearless Preacher

Fox not only preached in the homes of kindly disposed people and in open-air meetings, but frequently went into the churches, or “steeple-houses,” as he called them, where at the close of the sermon by the priest, he would himself address the congregation. This practice was not uncommon at the time. In rare cases, however, Fox violated custom by interrupting the minister before his sermon was completed. The resentment against such interference was often bitter. He was more than once mobbed...

Table of contents

• Title page
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• INTRODUCTION
• 1-George Fox-A Man Chosen of God
• 2-England in Mid-Seventeenth Century
• 3-Early Ministry of George Fox in Northern England
• 4-A Half Dozen of Fox’s Co-Laborers (I)
• 5-A Half Dozen of Fox’s Co-Laborers (II)
• 6-The Holy Spirit’s Urge to Wider Fields
• 7-The Message Which Friends Proclaimed-Doctrines
• 8-The Message Which Friends Proclaimed-Testimonies
• 9-Church Organization and Discipline
• 10-Notable Recruits Join Ranks of Friends
• 11-Society of Friends at Opening of Eighteenth Century
• 12-The Age of Quietism
• 13-Some Leaders of the Age of Quietism
• 14-Foreboding Signs of a Divided House
• 15-Friends Minister to Human Need and Promote Reform
• 16-The Great Migration and the Great Divide
• 17-Quakerism Further Divided
• 18-Friends Lend Aid to Anti-Slavery Movement
• 19-The Great Nineteenth-Century Revival
• 20-Dominant Trends Among Twentieth-Century Quakers
• 21-Friends Promote Education
• 22-Friends and the Great Commission
• 23-Our Debt to a World in Need
• Appendix A-BIBLIOGRAPHY
• Appendix B-SOME QUAKER TERMS AND OBJECTIVES
• Appendix C-DOCTRINAL STATEMENTS OF FRIENDS
• Appendix D-MEMBERSHIP STATISTICS OF THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS 1961 (APPROXIMATE)
• REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER