I. The Rise and Principles of Quakerism

Johannes Becoldus redivivus; or, the English Quakers the German Enthusiasts Revived, is the title of a publication which appeared in 1659 in Boston. It was naturally hostile to the Quakers. At a time when the worst calumnies concerning the vanquished of Munster found ready credence, the worst that could be said about any movement was that it was a revival of the Munster movement. However, the comparison was not altogether unwarranted. What was then suggested merely to prejudice men’s minds against the new sect is now generally admitted as far as regards the spiritual descent of Quakerism from or its spiritual connection with the Continental Anabaptist movement.

In fact, the Quaker movement at the outset was really a revival of the original tendencies of the Anabaptist movement, of which the representatives of the new movement were unconscious, clothed in a new garb suited to the altered circumstances. The Lollard movement in England in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries had been a primitive reaction against the rapacity and ostentation of Rome and of the Roman clergy, rather than a profound spiritual movement; while Puritanism, which was a genuine spiritual manifestation in the sixteenth and even in the first half of the seventeenth century, had through its conflict with monarchic absolutism become increasingly formal and shallow from a religious point of view, especially in the degree that it had been espoused by the proprietary classes. This was clearly apparent from the moment when Puritanism triumphed over Charles I. The Presbyterians, on the one hand, repelled many people by their want of toleration and their pedantic insistence on formal church discipline, while, on the other hand, the Independent Ministers, after 1649, and after the rigorous measures adopted against the Royalist priests, had fallen into ill-repute on account of their sycophancy towards the new rulers. The Independents and Baptists now set up as recognized, regular churches and began to dogmatize, and in some cases to excommunicate. The Baptists had meanwhile split up into two sects, viz., the “General Baptists”, who allowed a certain freedom to the human will, and the “Particular Baptists”, who held fast to the Calvinistic doctrine of predestination. Both sections insisted on baptism by immersion. But many people who had been stirred by the religious conflicts failed to find satisfaction in any sect. All dogmas had been shaken, one faction in the Church decried the other, and these disputes were carried on in the streets and open places, the public joining in, as in the case of modern political meetings. The result was that scepticism spread among the people, many of whom turned their backs on religion altogether. Judging from the reports of Quaker missionaries, there were in England at that time a considerable number of people who denied the truth of the Biblical story of the creation, and declared that “all comes by nature”. But such sceptics were lost in the great bulk of the nation. Others attached themselves to obscure sects, brooding on the mysteries of creation (the so-called “seekers”), or waiting for a sign from heaven which was to solve their doubts (the so-called “waiters”).

One of these “seekers” was George Fox, son of a Leicestershire silk-weaver. Born in 1624, and bred during the period of Puritan persecutions, he developed at a very early age a strong religious bent. He was apprenticed by his father, who was in comfortable circumstances, to a shoemaker, who was also a sheep-breeder; but he abandoned his apprenticeship at the age of nineteen, and driven by a restless, roving spirit, he went from place to place, from county to county, preaching and arguing. None of the existing Churches satisfied him; they were all too worldly to his mind, they did not correspond with primitive Christianity, and obeyed the letter rather than the spirit. Through debating, reading, and the influence of environment, he eventually reached a state of mind which was a compound of rationalism and mysticism, of democracy and political abstention. Strange as it may appear at first sight, it will nevertheless become intelligible in the light of contemporary events as set forth in the preceding chapters. The civil war had claimed untold sacrifices, without any satisfactory result; political struggles had succeeded each other without bringing a solution of social difficulties any nearer; men who had been hailed as deliverers, when once raised to power, assumed the mien of oppressors, and thus the conclusion seemed inescapable that the chief evil lay in man himself, in the weakness of human nature, which the existing Churches had proved powerless to overcome. Enthusiastic natures were likely to incline to this view, and thus we see George Fox, who up to the proclamation of the Commonwealth had been like the “voice of one crying in the wilderness”, after 1650 making converts in increasing numbers. They flocked to him from all parts, a large contingent coming from the former soldiers of Cromwell’s Army, who, owing to their discontent with the course of events, had either obtained a discharge or been dismissed from the Army. This element was, at first, so strongly represented in the communities established by Fox that in many of them a different spirit from his own prevailed. The Ironsides concurred with Fox in rejecting the formal element in Church matters, having been trained to this in Cromwell’s Army, where, after the withdrawal in 1644 of the official ministers of religion, anyone would preach whom the spirit moved. After this we can understand the following passage from John Evelyn’s Diary: “On Sunday afternoon I frequently staid at home to catechize and instruct my family, those exercises universally ceasing in the parish churches, so as people had no principles, and grew very ignorant of even the common points of Christianity; all devotion being now placed in hearing sermons and discourses of speculative and notional things.” But their objection to war and politics was not the same as Fox’s. His objection was based on principle, after the manner of the Mennonites, from whom on the whole Fox differed little in doctrine. while their objection was largely one of expediency. They stood aloof from war and party contentions, but did not abandon the hope of eventually realizing their social ideals by political methods.

It was not until after the Restoration that Fox’s doctrine of abstention from politics was generally adopted by the Quakers. During the Commonwealth this was so little the case, that when representatives of the Army (in April 1659) presented a petition to Parliament in favour of a resumption of the “good old cause” of liberty and of the republic, Quakers supported it by a memorial which added a few further demands to those of the petition. During the first years of the Commonwealth Fox was generally overshadowed by the republican Quakers who headed the religious-revolutionary opposition to Cromwell. They “marched through the streets of London, denouncing with uplifted voice Cromwell’s Government, and predicting its downfall”. Publicly they were better known than Fox. The best-known person among the Quakers, against whom the pamphlet referred to at the commencement of this chapter is directed, was James Naylor, an ex-quartermaster of the Army.

But before dealing further with this man, and the incident which made him notorious, and which throws much light on the first period of Quakerism, it will be expedient to discuss the ideas chiefly propagated by the Quakers.

The Quakers believe in God and are Christians, adhering as strictly as possible to primitive Christianity; but what they mainly rely upon is not the traditional “Word of God”, the Bible, but the living word, the inward light. Consequently they call themselves the “Professors”, or else the “Children of Light”. The name of Quakers was first given to them by opponents in derision, and then came into general vogue. This cult of the inward light down to the very name “Children of Light”, forms a connecting-link between the Quakers and many German Anabaptists, as also the German Mystics, and it is a suggestive fact that the first English edition of writings of the German theosophic mystic, Jacob Böhme, was issued in 1649 by the bookseller who issued the Quaker publications of the period, viz., Giles Culvert of London, who, as we know, was also the publisher and in some cases even co-signatory of the pamphlets of the “Levellers”.

According to Quaker doctrine, this “inner illumination” can only come as a result of concentration of the thoughts on God, for which purpose neither a learned sermon nor a liturgy is necessary. On the contrary, a professional learned priesthood, appointed and paid by the State, is an evil; everyone shall preach, or rather he shall say what he has to say, whom the inner voice prompts to do so and whenever it prompts him to, whether he be a man of education or not. Fox and the first Quakers inveighed with real fanaticism against a priesthood paid out of public funds. Repeated instances occurred when Quakers entered churches and shouted at the preacher in the pulpit: “Come down, thou false prophet, thou impostor, thou blind leader of the blind, thou hireling!” We read in Fox’s diary that the priests “trade”, that they “sell” their Gospel, that the bells of their “steeple-houses” (the Quakers will not allow the name of “church” for any building) resemble market-bells, which call the people together in order that the priest may “spread out his wares for sale”; and “the enormous sums which are obtained by this traffic, what other traffic in the world can be compared to it?” But even without using such invectives, the Quakers frequently interrupted preachers, or took the Word after the regular service was finished and preached to the assembled multitude their own doctrine. But they did not always get a quiet hearing; sometimes the whole community, and in the majority of other cases the bulk of the inhabitants, showed themselves hostile to the passionate apostles and vented their indignation on them by ill-treatment of the most brutal kind. Again and again we read that the Quaker apostles were beaten, stoned, kicked, and often the apostles of the new doctrine, after such an attempt to win the people, would be lying unconscious on the ground, bruised and bleeding, for hours, until some charitable soul took pity on them. The sequel was in most cases an inquiry before a Justice of the Peace, ending with the Quakers being sentenced to fines, imprisonment, and whipping. All other sects taken together did not at that time supply half as many inmates to the prisons as the “Professors of Light”.

The rejection of the letter led the Quakers, among other things, to reject the strictly literal conception of the Sabbath rest, which was observed by the other Puritans, whom they often reproved on account of their “Judaizing tendencies”. As regards asceticism in their mode of life, they outstripped all other sects; they strictly prohibited all boisterous amusements and every luxury, and the peculiar and severely plain dress retained by them for a long time is well known. They interpreted the Sermon on the Mount literally. They would suffer the severest penalties rather than take an oath. They likewise rejected the Church sacraments of Baptism, Communion, and Holy Matrimony. Their cult, in some of its forms, was extremely rationalistic; they assembled in plain meeting-houses, where they gave themselves up to religious meditation. Following the precepts of the Sermon on the Mount, they repudiated war and forcible resistance, and however impracticable their ideas may sound, it cannot be denied that when endeavouring to carry them out the early Quakers frequently displayed heroic strength of character. Men who had helped to fight Cromwell’s battles bore quietly the worst brutalities from excited ruffians, and risked death rather than defend themselves. A training of character was further supplied by their rule to address everyone as “thou”, and not to doff their hats to anyone; the first because they considered it tantamount to a lie to address an individual as if he represented a plural number, and the second because equal respect was due to all men, whether poor or rich, high or low, and that it was therefore an unworthy act to bow to any man. The judges and other authorities, of course, took a different view from that of the Quakers, and in most cases cast them into prison for “contempt of court”, and frequently had them whipped into the bargain. And prison, where the bulk of the inmates were vagrants covered with vermin and criminals, generally proved to the Quakers veritable hells on earth. Nevertheless, they stuck to this rule with iron tenacity; it was not relaxed under the pressure of persecutions, but only after the Quakers had succeeded in gaining for themselves political toleration and social acknowledgment. “And albeit no Reason can be given why we should be Persecuted upon this account, especially by Christians, who profess to follow the Rule of Scripture, whose Dialect this is; yet it would perhaps seem incredible, if I should relate how much we have suffered for this thing, and how these Proud Ones have fumed, fretted, and gnashed their Teeth, frequently beating and striking us, when we have spoken to them in the Singular Number: Whereby we are the more confirmed in our Judgment, as seeing that this Testimony of Truth, which God hath given us to bear in all things, doth so vex the Serpentine Nature in the Children of Darkness.” Thus wrote the most prominent exponent of Quakerism, Robert Barelay senior, in his principal work, published in 1675, An Apology for the True Christian Divinity, as the Same is Held Forth and Preached, by the People, called in Scorn, Quakers (4th Edition, pp. 528, 529).

A further source of persecution was the Quakers’ persistent refusal to pay tithes. Among all the more important sects they upheld most consistently the principle that religion was a private matter. And certainly greater moral courage was required for a member of a moderately numerous sect, mainly composed of members of the poorer classes, of the “vulgar” (Hume), to refuse to pay taxes, than for John Hampden, when supported by more than half the nation, to refuse to pay ship-money.

The constitution of the Quaker communities was thoroughly democratic; it was modelled, in its cardinal features, upon that of the early Christian communities, and presents all the essential characteristics to be found in the communities of the more consistent among the Anabaptists, viz., regular meetings for exercising discipline and moral censorship, settling disputes, and regulating financial affairs. From these local meetings the organization (which grew but gradually) extends to the quarterly district meetings and the annual general meetings of the whole community.

The writings of Fox and of the better-known advocates of early Quakerism reveal no distinct social or economic tendencies; they are of a purely religious and ethical character. Whether and to what extent communistic tendencies were propagated among the early Quakers, or certain sections of them, by clandestine teaching, is difficult to ascertain. The only thing certain is that at a very early date they established among themselves an organized system of charitable relief, and the more prosperous among their members exhibited in this respect a noteworthy spirit of sacrifice. Significantly enough, a beginning was made with the relief of the victims of coercion and persecution, but soon this was followed by arrangements for the relief of poor and sick members of the community. anything beyond this was utterly impracticable during the period of propaganda; even avowedly communistic sects were obliged, unless special circumstances favoured a fuller community of goods or incomes, to limit the realization of their ideal in practice to the relief of the poor.

On the other hand, it was possible to apply communism to education, and we may observe in the case of the Quakers a feature that is peculiar to all the communistic sects of the period, namely, a contempt for academic learning combined with a great interest in education. Barclay the elder, for instance, in the book already quoted, after condemning theatres, dancing, sports, and other diversions as detracting from true Christianity, mentions as permissible amusements the following: to visit friends, to read or hear history, to converse soberly on the events of the present or of the past, to engage in gardening, to make geometrical and mathematical experiments and the like. Fox, in his letters, never tires of impressing upon his friends the importance of educating the young. The first years of their propaganda, however, were not a favourable time for the promotion of this purpose. The numerous persecutions exhausted all the resources of the “friends”; their most capable members were alternately in prison; and many of their followers were inclined to believe that the “inner light” compensated for all knowledge except that required for daily pursuits.

It was only gradually that much of what we have been describing took definite shape as the Quaker movement, and came to be generally recognized as such. Originally, in this as in similar movements, the negative side, the protest – in this case protest against the establishment of new hierarchies – was uppermost. It was during this early period of fermentation and persecution, in some respects marking its very climax, that the James Naylor episode occurred.