Quaker Writing: 17th Century
QUAKER WRITING: 17TH CENTURY
About the Author—Michael Birkel is a member of Clear Creek MM. He teaches in the Religion Department of Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, and has traveled widely among Friends as a lecturer and workshop leader. Currently he is at work on the spiritual writings of Jakob Boehme. Michael is also active in interfaith relations, particularly Muslim-Christian dialogue.
Introduction: Reading Across Time—We live in the midst of a revival of interest in spiritual nurture. In a search for a trusted and experienced companion, it is worthwhile to look deeply into Quakerism’s wisdom heritage. How did early Friends offer guidance to one another in the life of the Spirit? I have found Margaret Fell’s words to be just the pertinent advice I needed, if not really wanted, to hear. Margaret Fell’s words reminded me that the Light is arisen within us, that the word of God is very near, within our hearts.
Her words on discernment cautioned me to “look not out[ward]” for guidance, but inward where Light dwells. External forms are mere images, not reliable guides, even if they cloak themselves in the appearance of everlasting truth. I have been taught by Margaret Fell’s example to keep in mind I am only a listener who can point another person to God, the source of guidance. Margaret Fell’s words have a deeply evocative quality, & they ring out like vocal ministry. “Therefore in that which is pure and eternal, which is one in all, which leads into love and unity, dwell and abide faithful, and constant, and obedient, and ye shall eat the good of the land.”
Letters reach across time. This is especially true of spiritual counsel. The wisdom they offer invites us to return to them for spiritual nourishment. We find them in Scripture & the ancient church, kept alive by monastic life. This essay will address Margaret Fell’s wisdom & blessing, a valiant early Friend who is often remembered for other gifts. She was a spiritual guide whose letters still speak across the centuries. The music of Margaret Fell’s letters reveals its deeper treasures to those who can listen until they hear its subtleties. I will be using excerpts mainly from letters to Anthony Pearson & William Osborn, along with passages from other letters.
Terminology: Margaret Fell’s Language of Spiritual Nurture—Margaret Fell wrote letters of spiritual counsel to individuals & to groups of Friends. In her letters, Margaret Fell tends to recede into the background; she directs her readers to the Light, which provides the real guidance. Often we can discern a pattern in her counsel: to keep low, to wait, to mind the Light, to see, to be faithful & obedient. We need to keep low so we do not block what we want to see, which is the activity of God in our midst. Her letters repeatedly caution against haste. We need to wait and listen and pay attention so that we can encounter what is true and trustworthy.
Only when we have quieted, centered ourselves, focused attention on the activity of God within, can we really perceive the Light. The Light will show us truth, including uncomfortable truths about ourselves. Friends are to be faithful and obedient to their particular measures of the Light; she knows that we are not all alike. Different people are led to different actions. Margaret Fell’s letters are an encouragement and a guide to discerning the difference between a leading of the Light and a personal motivation.
Illustration: Letter to Anthony Pearson—Dear heart, mind the living God … see what thou can witness of him made manifest in thee, for there thou must find him & see him, if ever thou know him for thy comfort. And see if that which is of God in thee be not in bondage in Egypt … Wait upon the Lord in the Light of God in thee … and it will bring the seed of God out of prison, if thou hearken to it and be obedient to it.
Though God is available to all of us inwardly, we have a tendency to hold that of God in bondage. “Flesh” [in Margaret Fell’s writing] does not refer to our experience of physical embodiment but a selfish orientation. “Flesh” looks outward for guidance; Spirit looks within. … Be low and watchful, and mind [the Light] which keeps thy peace, and it will show thee what brings trouble … It will lead thee to another kingdom which is not of this world, which is righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. The Light 1st reveals the inner struggle and then shows the way forward to peace.
The arrival of God, accompanied by fearful judgment and purification, was understood as an interior event among early Friends. Margaret said: “It will rip you up and lay you open, and make all manifest which lodgeth in you … Therefore all come to this and be searched, judged, led and guided.” This interior struggle would eventually yield to an inner peace as good triumphed over evil. Her words are an invitation to another realm and a different way of living one’s life, one which brings a peace that the world cannot give.
Style: Margaret Fell’s Mother Tongue—The newcomer to early Quaker letters enters a land with different customs in style & content. Letters were dictated, so her letters sounded more spoken than written. People listened in the same meditative mind-frame in which letters were written. Since Friends sought guidance from the Spirit that they found in worship, these letters give us a hint of what vocal ministry sounded like to early Friends.
These letters are filled to the brim with Biblical allusions, many of which may be unfamiliar to us. Identifying Biblical sources of her words helps us to enter Margaret Fell’s spiritual world. She urged Friends to read Scripture “within,” to experience how Bible offers us language to understand inward life’s dynamics. [The God of Daniel, Shadrack, Meshack, & Abednego was used to comfort] Friends imprisoned in Lancaster Castle (1654) with the expectation they would be preserved by the same Spirit. With this Friends endured their suffering.
The Letter to William Osborn—Margaret Fell wrote to William Osborn in 1657. He was lieutenant-colonel in Oliver Cromwell’s army. The New Model Army was the gathering place of religious and social radicals. He became a Quaker leader in Edinburgh, Scotland beginning in 1653. Her letter opens: My dear love is to thee, dear heart. Wait and be faithful to thy measure of the good word of God which thou hast received, that with it thou may see that which is contrary cut down.
To wait upon God [in Margaret Fell’s day] was an act of focused attention & intention. The measure of the God’s good word, of Light, is “scripture within thee.” It conveys a message from God. The measure & [Biblical] Scripture provide guidance if we wait & give heed. Margaret Fell then connected “good word of God” with a passage in Hebrews, comparing the sharpness of God’s word with a 2-edged sword. [In keeping with “sharp & cutting,” Margaret moves on to the axe in the Gospel of Luke & John the Baptist’s address]. She wants the axe kept close to the root, so that the axe may distinguish between good & evil, between what's of God & what's not.
“[The Biblical story] thou must read within; this is the messenger that goes before him, to prepare the way for him that baptizes with fire & the Holy Ghost.” The Biblical story tells an external history of the community of believers, and the same story is relived in inward lives of all believers. Part of preparing for the fire & Spirit baptizer is discernment, coming to clearness as to what is of God. We may have to cut what is overgrown & blocks Light from getting to us. What is it that hinders finding the Light in our inward lives?
And keep low at the bottom, that the tree which cannot bring evil fruit may take root, [grounded into the rock] and upward, that so thy growth may be true [and thy peace pure]. To be “grounded” takes her to images of safety, sureness, and peace. Keeping low is to wait, not to rush into taking charge; it is to focus our attention on the presence and activity of God rather than to draw attention to ourselves. How is pure peace different from an impure and contaminated peace? Discernment, if we are attentive can show us where an inner motion has arisen and where it promises to take us, [preferably to a pure peace] by ensuring that it did not originate from a selfish drive not rooted in truth, or that it has no lasting power and will leave us weaker in the end.
In the next section Margaret Fell announces an inward fulfillment of the prophecies of Isaiah concerning freedom from oppression. [Friends often use these prophecies to call for social justice]. [Margaret speaks of inner] trials, afflictions and fasting. Genuine fasting is accompanied by social justice and compassion. The results of genuine discernment is interior freedom, rather than being enslaved to guilt or bad habits or fear. The spiritual life is about freedom to love. The love of God satisfies the soul’s essential thirst. 3 years earlier she encouraged her Friends in Lancaster Castle to be faithful, so that they might “be fed with the living bread and drink of the living water of the spiritual rock,” and “not to eat from flesh” [i.e. have a selfish orientation]. Both bread and drink refer to the presence of Christ, understood by Friends as an inward experience.
["Clean Thy House," Plant Thy Garden]—Margaret [transitions from “grounded into the rock” to the house that is a part of the passage that phrase comes from]: This thou must read in thy own bosom, and so make sure and clean thy own house. And the candle that is lighted … is put on a candlestick, that all may be seen that is in the house … For 2 nations thou wilt see in thee, and the [earthly]elder must serve the [heavenly] younger.
We know that Margaret Fell was a consummate manager and organizer. She guided Swarthmore Hall when Judge Thomas Fell was away in court. Matthew’s speaking of enemies in the household is taken by Margaret to refer to the presence of evil in one’s own soul. The “2 nations” refer to spiritual Jacob and unspiritual Esau, [the latter serving the former]. The dominant image here is of cleaning the house, overcoming enmity, and the Light showing what is to be seen and then prevailing over it.
I offer a paraphrase of the 1st part of this letter: And this you must read within, because the Scripture is the language of the interior life … The good word of God within you is the Light, and you must allow this Light to shine in the house of your soul … There were 2 nations struggling in Rebecca’s womb; the unspiritual Esau is to be subservient to the spiritual Jacob … Christ is also born within, in each believer … Our earthly, bodily selves must serve the purposes of the spiritual life.
This passage is an example of how one can read within, allowing one Biblical image to lead to another and one Biblical passage to comment on another, weaving a rich fabric, which comments on the inward life. And so my dear heart, low, low, to thy own measure keep, that the pure plant may arise, where the unity is, which my heavenly Father planteth. He purgeth it, and cleaneth it. And so in the Light dwell and walk.
Here we move from Margaret Fell as householder to Margaret Fell as gardener, drawn once more to Biblical images of planting [& to discernment] of what stays in & what goes out, so that God’s pure plant may sprout; the interior garden requires weeding & light. The eternal God of power keep thee faithful, that a pure growing up in the eternal thou may witness, [&] that an instrument for his glory thou may be. In her epistle’s final words, Margaret Fell uses her own words [to say] be faithful, attentive, obedient. Don’t rush. Strength will come if we wait.
“Pure” occurs 5 times in the epistle. Pure relates to clean, cleanse, purge, wash. Purity is a result of discernment, which separates pure from the impure or mixed. By now we have seen Scripture’s role as spiritual life’s language. The Bible provides Margaret Fell with language to describe the inward landscape. Discernment is essential for a group that relies on divine leadings as a guide in the spiritual life. She offers the most practical advice of all: pay attention to the work of God within oneself. The role of the spiritual companion is to focus the person’s attention on the guidance within, so that she or he can be receptive to it. She didn’t pretend to know more than she did about the particular circumstances & needs of those to whom she was writing. In this letter she is urging her reader to look within, wait, & clear a space, so that the Light may come, so that fruit may grow.
More Where That Came From—My joy and life is, that you would take heed to your own measure received, and be true and faithful to that which is able to save your soul. … May you grow apace, living plants in the garden of the Lord, which now he is dressing and watering and pruning, that to him fruit may be brought forth … Every branch that beareth not fruit he taketh away. Now see with the eternal Light, whether ye bring forth fruit unto God, for every tree is known by its fruit.
Life and immortality moves in the Light, so wait every one in your measure for the manifestation of God. His will is revealed in the Light, his works wrought in the Light. Let the living principle of God in you, examine what you enjoy and possess of him which is eternal. What is of him will stand in his presence, who is a consuming fire unto all that is not him.
In this era of revived interest in spiritual nurture, Margaret Fell is good company to keep. Her spiritual advice is still fresh and vital inviting us into a deeper inward life, where the clarity, the love, and the unity can be found in the presence of the Light that guides us,
Queries: What have spiritual nurturers helped you to discover? Have you attempted being “low & watchful”? Have you experienced an increase in your “measure” as a result of faithfulness? Has the Light “ripped you up & laid you open”? What is meant by “reading Scripture within”? How would you put in your own words Margaret Fell’s advice concerning spiritual discernment?
http://www.pendlehill.org/product-category/pamphlets
www.facebook.com/pendlehill?fref=ts
29. The Inward Journey of Isaac Penington (edited by Robert J. Leach; 1944)
He that readeth these things, let him not strive to comprehend them; but be content with what he feeleth thereof suitable to his own present estate, and as the life grows in him and he in the life . . . the words . . . will of themselves open to him. ISAAC PENINGTON
Introduction—The spiritual writings of Isaac Penington (1617-1679), [published in a large folio with an 80-word title], evoke a real response in our present war-torn world. Their advice concerning the slow growth of inward comprehension speaks to our condition. The lyric beauty of Penington’s free verse carries the reader along to the subject of public worship, in which Christ himself speaks. The Inward Journey [explains how to] find the living virtue [and salvation] which Isaac Penington had himself discovered. In 1658 the Peningtons . . . fully associated themselves with the then new Society of Friends . . . becoming consistent and fervent members of the new spiritual movement . . . and ministers of God’s holy word.
Spring of Life—I never durst trust the spring of my life. I set [knowledge of Scripture] over the springings of life in me, and indeed judged that I ought so to do. I did not look to have been so broken, shattered, and distressed as I afterwards was. I was in a congregational way. We parted very lovingly . . . [I] promising to return to them again, if ever I met with that which my soul wanted, and had clearness in the Lord so to do.
I spent many years, and fell into great weakness of body. And the Lord my God owned me, and sealed his love unto me, and light sprang within me . . . so that everything was sweet and pleasant and lightsome round about me. But I soon felt that this estate was too high and glorious for me . . . This was presently removed from me, yet a savor remained with me, wherein I had sweetness, comfort, and refreshment for a long season.
The Lord open my spirit, the Lord gave me the certain & sensible feeling of the pure seed . . . [so] that I cried out in my spirit This is he. . . there never was another. He was always near me, though I knew him not Oh, that I might now be joined with him, & he alone might live in me. Having gone through a sore travail & fight of afflictions & temptations . . . [&] having met with the true way . . . I can't be silent, but am necessitated to testify of it to others . . . [namely] to retire inwardly, and wait to feel somewhat of the Lord, his holy spirit and power, and draw [away] from that which is contrary to him, and into his holy nature and heavenly image. There is one that stands in the way to this work of the Lord . . . by raising up a fear of being deceived and betrayed . . .so that I durst not close with what I felt to be of God. The very yoke is ease and the burden light, when the mind and will is changed by the power, and helped and assisted by the Lord in its subjection to the power.
The Lord is now gentle and tender, pursuing thee with his love, and following thee up and down with his light; . . . he will slay the serpentine wisdom in thee, with all its inventions. That wisdom must be destroyed, and that understanding brought to naught, and thou become a child and learn as a child if ever thou know the things of God. These [who are grievously sick in soul and deeply wounded in spirit] are near the kingdom and are quickly reached to, melted, and brought into the sense in which with joy they receive the faith, and with the faith the power which bring righteousness and salvation to their souls.
There is a faith which is of a man’s self, and a faith which is the gift of God. A man may believe the history of the Scripture, yea and all the doctrines of them. Man by a natural faith grows up and spread into a great tree and is very confident and much pleased, not perceiving the defect in his root, what all his growth here will come to. A literal knowledge of the blood of Christ can only talk of it [but not feel it or live it]. In plain terms, you must part with all your religion which you have gathered in your own wisdom. Know the silencing of the fleshly part, that the spiritual part may grow in wisdom, that so ye may learn in the spirit, and know the word of God and be able to speak it.
Truth is of God & was with God, & in God before anything else had a being. Truth remains the same that it was, keeping its pure, eternal, unchangeable nature, & isn't, nor ever was, nor ever can be defiled. The field is near thee, O man, which thou art to purchase & dig in, & must feel torn up by God's plough in some measure before this pearl [of great price] appear to thee. To the soul that hath felt breathings towards the Lord formerly I say: Where art Thou? How Art thou in thy soul’s rest? How Dost thou feel the virtue & power of the Spirit gospel? How Dost thou feel the life & power flowing in upon thee from the free fountain? How Is the load really taken off from thy back? Hast thou found this, or hast thou missed this? How Art thou in the living power, in the divine life, joined to the spring of life, drawing water of life out of the well of life with joy? How art thou dry, dead, barren, sapless, at best unsatisfiedly mourning after what thou wantest?
The Seed—The seed of God is the word of God; the seed of the kingdom is the word of the kingdom. The pure, living, heavenly knowledge of the Father, and of his Son Christ Jesus, is wrapped up in this seed. As the seed is formed in him, Christ is formed in him; and as he is formed and new-created in the seed, he is the workmanship of God, formed and new-created in Christ.
According to Scripture, the seed of God or the seed of the kingdom:
1. Is of an immortal, incorruptible, mysterious nature, though it may be as though it were dead in man.
2. Is of a gathering nature, gathering that which is contrary to God unto God, wherein the soul should dwell, and walk, and be subject.
He that readeth these things, let him not strive to comprehend them; but be content with what he feeleth thereof suitable to his own present estate, and as the life grows in him and he in the life . . . the words . . . will of themselves open to him. ISAAC PENINGTON
Introduction—The spiritual writings of Isaac Penington (1617-1679), [published in a large folio with an 80-word title], evoke a real response in our present war-torn world. Their advice concerning the slow growth of inward comprehension speaks to our condition. The lyric beauty of Penington’s free verse carries the reader along to the subject of public worship, in which Christ himself speaks. The Inward Journey [explains how to] find the living virtue [and salvation] which Isaac Penington had himself discovered. In 1658 the Peningtons . . . fully associated themselves with the then new Society of Friends . . . becoming consistent and fervent members of the new spiritual movement . . . and ministers of God’s holy word.
Spring of Life—I never durst trust the spring of my life. I set [knowledge of Scripture] over the springings of life in me, and indeed judged that I ought so to do. I did not look to have been so broken, shattered, and distressed as I afterwards was. I was in a congregational way. We parted very lovingly . . . [I] promising to return to them again, if ever I met with that which my soul wanted, and had clearness in the Lord so to do.
I spent many years, and fell into great weakness of body. And the Lord my God owned me, and sealed his love unto me, and light sprang within me . . . so that everything was sweet and pleasant and lightsome round about me. But I soon felt that this estate was too high and glorious for me . . . This was presently removed from me, yet a savor remained with me, wherein I had sweetness, comfort, and refreshment for a long season.
The Lord open my spirit, the Lord gave me the certain & sensible feeling of the pure seed . . . [so] that I cried out in my spirit This is he. . . there never was another. He was always near me, though I knew him not Oh, that I might now be joined with him, & he alone might live in me. Having gone through a sore travail & fight of afflictions & temptations . . . [&] having met with the true way . . . I can't be silent, but am necessitated to testify of it to others . . . [namely] to retire inwardly, and wait to feel somewhat of the Lord, his holy spirit and power, and draw [away] from that which is contrary to him, and into his holy nature and heavenly image. There is one that stands in the way to this work of the Lord . . . by raising up a fear of being deceived and betrayed . . .so that I durst not close with what I felt to be of God. The very yoke is ease and the burden light, when the mind and will is changed by the power, and helped and assisted by the Lord in its subjection to the power.
The Lord is now gentle and tender, pursuing thee with his love, and following thee up and down with his light; . . . he will slay the serpentine wisdom in thee, with all its inventions. That wisdom must be destroyed, and that understanding brought to naught, and thou become a child and learn as a child if ever thou know the things of God. These [who are grievously sick in soul and deeply wounded in spirit] are near the kingdom and are quickly reached to, melted, and brought into the sense in which with joy they receive the faith, and with the faith the power which bring righteousness and salvation to their souls.
There is a faith which is of a man’s self, and a faith which is the gift of God. A man may believe the history of the Scripture, yea and all the doctrines of them. Man by a natural faith grows up and spread into a great tree and is very confident and much pleased, not perceiving the defect in his root, what all his growth here will come to. A literal knowledge of the blood of Christ can only talk of it [but not feel it or live it]. In plain terms, you must part with all your religion which you have gathered in your own wisdom. Know the silencing of the fleshly part, that the spiritual part may grow in wisdom, that so ye may learn in the spirit, and know the word of God and be able to speak it.
Truth is of God & was with God, & in God before anything else had a being. Truth remains the same that it was, keeping its pure, eternal, unchangeable nature, & isn't, nor ever was, nor ever can be defiled. The field is near thee, O man, which thou art to purchase & dig in, & must feel torn up by God's plough in some measure before this pearl [of great price] appear to thee. To the soul that hath felt breathings towards the Lord formerly I say: Where art Thou? How Art thou in thy soul’s rest? How Dost thou feel the virtue & power of the Spirit gospel? How Dost thou feel the life & power flowing in upon thee from the free fountain? How Is the load really taken off from thy back? Hast thou found this, or hast thou missed this? How Art thou in the living power, in the divine life, joined to the spring of life, drawing water of life out of the well of life with joy? How art thou dry, dead, barren, sapless, at best unsatisfiedly mourning after what thou wantest?
The Seed—The seed of God is the word of God; the seed of the kingdom is the word of the kingdom. The pure, living, heavenly knowledge of the Father, and of his Son Christ Jesus, is wrapped up in this seed. As the seed is formed in him, Christ is formed in him; and as he is formed and new-created in the seed, he is the workmanship of God, formed and new-created in Christ.
According to Scripture, the seed of God or the seed of the kingdom:
1. Is of an immortal, incorruptible, mysterious nature, though it may be as though it were dead in man.
2. Is of a gathering nature, gathering that which is contrary to God unto God, wherein the soul should dwell, and walk, and be subject.
3. Is of a purging, cleansing nature, [both of fire and of water]. There is strength in this seed, and virtue in this seed, against all the strength of deceit and wickedness in the other seed.
4. Is of a seasoning, leavening, sanctifying nature. It will go on leavening more and more . . . into the likeness of the God of truth.
5. Is of an enriching nature. It enriches his heart [toward God] with that which is holy and heavenly.
6. Is of an improving, growing nature, like a grain of mustard seed [growing into] a tree of righteousness.
God will never leave nor forsake that soul which is joined to & abides with him in this seed; it shall be kept by God's power, through the faith that springs from this seed, unto perfect redemption & salvation. Amen.
Doctrines—It is an excellent thing indeed to receive Christ, to feel union with him in his spirit, to enter into the new and holy agreement with God, into the everlasting covenant of life and peace, keeping his statutes and judgments, and doing them, so as to have union and fellowship with the Lord. God advanced the state of a believer above the state of the Jews under the law. Theirs was a law without, at a distance from them; but here is a law within, nigh at hand. They need no man to teach them, but have the spirit of prophecy in themselves and quick, living teachings from him continually. Moses’ dispensation of the law and Christ’s are one in spirit; and when he cometh in spirit, he doth not destroy either Moses or the prophets; the law is but one, although the dispensations of it have been various. The thing of great value with the Father was Christ’s obedience.
The Scriptures expressly distinguish between Christ & the garment [body] which he wore. There was the outward vessel, & the inward life. In Christ there is freedom; in his word there is power & life, & that reaching to the heart. Christ is a perfect physician, and is able to work a perfect cure on the heart that believeth in him, and waiteth upon him. Christ likewise bids his disciples be perfect as their heavenly Father is perfect. There is a growing in the life, even where the heart is purified . . . for a state of perfection does not exclude degrees.
The Yoke—Christ’s immediate revelation of the nature of his Father is to his babes; not to the wise, not to the zealous, not to the studious, not to the devout, not to the rich in the knowledge of the Scriptures without, but to the weak, the foolish, the poor, the lowly in heart. It is easy to take up a wrong yoke, in the self-will, self-wisdom, self-interpretation of Scriptures. And if a man thus miss the way, how can he attain the end? If a man begin not in the true faith, in the living faith, how can he attain the rest which the true faith alone leads to? He that walketh in Christ’s path cannot miss of it; the rest is at the end of it; nay, the rest is in it.
What is love? What shall I say of it, or how shall I in words express its nature? It is the sweetness of life; it is the sweet, tender, melting nature of God, flowing up through his seed of life into the creature. The great healing, the great conquest, the great salvation is reserved for the full manifestation of the love of God. . . [which brings] the full springing up of eternal love in my heart, and in the swallowing of me wholly into it. Oh how sweet is love. How pleasant is its nature. How doth it believe, how doth it hope, how doth it excuse, how doth it cover even that which seemeth not to be excusable, and not fit to be covered. . . it carrieth a meltingness and power of conviction with it. This is the nature of God.
There is a voluntary humility, and a voluntary poverty, even of spirit, which man casts himself into . . . by his own workings and reasonings. This is not the true, but the false image. [The right kind of] poverty ariseth from God’s emptying the creature, from God’s stripping the creature; and a humility which ariseth from a new heart and nature. And so the Lord of Life is only exalted, and the creature kept abased before him, and low forever; and is nothing but as the Lord pleaseth to fill, and make it to be what it is.
Worship—They are to wait upon the Lord, to meet in the silence of flesh, and to watch for the stirrings of his life, and the breakings forth of his power amongst them. They may [break forth in all manner of speech and music]. But if the spirit do not require to speak, then everyone is to sit still in his heavenly place, feeling his own measure, feeding thereupon, receiving therefrom what the Lord giveth. And that which we aim at is that the flesh in everyone be kept silent, that there be no building up, but in the spirit and power of the Lord.
Our worship is a deep exercise of our spirits before the Lord, which does not consist in an exercising the natural part or natural mind. That fleshly part, that fleshly understanding. . . wisdom . . . will, which will not bow down, is chained down by the power of life which God stretcheth forth over it, and subdueth it by. Give over thine own willing, give over thine own desiring to know or be anything, and sink down to the seed which God sows in thy heart and let that be in thee. [God], thy children wait on thee, they cry to thee day and night, that they may be preserved by thee in the well-doing, and in the pure holy, innocent sufferings for thy truth’s sake; until thou say “It is enough . . . suffer no more . . . reign with me and my Son forever.”
4. Is of a seasoning, leavening, sanctifying nature. It will go on leavening more and more . . . into the likeness of the God of truth.
5. Is of an enriching nature. It enriches his heart [toward God] with that which is holy and heavenly.
6. Is of an improving, growing nature, like a grain of mustard seed [growing into] a tree of righteousness.
God will never leave nor forsake that soul which is joined to & abides with him in this seed; it shall be kept by God's power, through the faith that springs from this seed, unto perfect redemption & salvation. Amen.
Doctrines—It is an excellent thing indeed to receive Christ, to feel union with him in his spirit, to enter into the new and holy agreement with God, into the everlasting covenant of life and peace, keeping his statutes and judgments, and doing them, so as to have union and fellowship with the Lord. God advanced the state of a believer above the state of the Jews under the law. Theirs was a law without, at a distance from them; but here is a law within, nigh at hand. They need no man to teach them, but have the spirit of prophecy in themselves and quick, living teachings from him continually. Moses’ dispensation of the law and Christ’s are one in spirit; and when he cometh in spirit, he doth not destroy either Moses or the prophets; the law is but one, although the dispensations of it have been various. The thing of great value with the Father was Christ’s obedience.
The Scriptures expressly distinguish between Christ & the garment [body] which he wore. There was the outward vessel, & the inward life. In Christ there is freedom; in his word there is power & life, & that reaching to the heart. Christ is a perfect physician, and is able to work a perfect cure on the heart that believeth in him, and waiteth upon him. Christ likewise bids his disciples be perfect as their heavenly Father is perfect. There is a growing in the life, even where the heart is purified . . . for a state of perfection does not exclude degrees.
The Yoke—Christ’s immediate revelation of the nature of his Father is to his babes; not to the wise, not to the zealous, not to the studious, not to the devout, not to the rich in the knowledge of the Scriptures without, but to the weak, the foolish, the poor, the lowly in heart. It is easy to take up a wrong yoke, in the self-will, self-wisdom, self-interpretation of Scriptures. And if a man thus miss the way, how can he attain the end? If a man begin not in the true faith, in the living faith, how can he attain the rest which the true faith alone leads to? He that walketh in Christ’s path cannot miss of it; the rest is at the end of it; nay, the rest is in it.
What is love? What shall I say of it, or how shall I in words express its nature? It is the sweetness of life; it is the sweet, tender, melting nature of God, flowing up through his seed of life into the creature. The great healing, the great conquest, the great salvation is reserved for the full manifestation of the love of God. . . [which brings] the full springing up of eternal love in my heart, and in the swallowing of me wholly into it. Oh how sweet is love. How pleasant is its nature. How doth it believe, how doth it hope, how doth it excuse, how doth it cover even that which seemeth not to be excusable, and not fit to be covered. . . it carrieth a meltingness and power of conviction with it. This is the nature of God.
There is a voluntary humility, and a voluntary poverty, even of spirit, which man casts himself into . . . by his own workings and reasonings. This is not the true, but the false image. [The right kind of] poverty ariseth from God’s emptying the creature, from God’s stripping the creature; and a humility which ariseth from a new heart and nature. And so the Lord of Life is only exalted, and the creature kept abased before him, and low forever; and is nothing but as the Lord pleaseth to fill, and make it to be what it is.
Worship—They are to wait upon the Lord, to meet in the silence of flesh, and to watch for the stirrings of his life, and the breakings forth of his power amongst them. They may [break forth in all manner of speech and music]. But if the spirit do not require to speak, then everyone is to sit still in his heavenly place, feeling his own measure, feeding thereupon, receiving therefrom what the Lord giveth. And that which we aim at is that the flesh in everyone be kept silent, that there be no building up, but in the spirit and power of the Lord.
Our worship is a deep exercise of our spirits before the Lord, which does not consist in an exercising the natural part or natural mind. That fleshly part, that fleshly understanding. . . wisdom . . . will, which will not bow down, is chained down by the power of life which God stretcheth forth over it, and subdueth it by. Give over thine own willing, give over thine own desiring to know or be anything, and sink down to the seed which God sows in thy heart and let that be in thee. [God], thy children wait on thee, they cry to thee day and night, that they may be preserved by thee in the well-doing, and in the pure holy, innocent sufferings for thy truth’s sake; until thou say “It is enough . . . suffer no more . . . reign with me and my Son forever.”
He that would know Christ, & be built upon Christ, must find a holy thing revealed in his heart, & his soul built thereon by him who alone can raise this building. The great work of Christ's minister is to keep the conscience open to Christ, and to preserve men from receiving any truths of Christ [beyond what] the spirit opens [to those men]. Therefore, the main thing in religion is to keep the conscience pure to the Lord, to know the guide, to follow the guide, to not take things for truths because others see them as truths, but to wait till the spirit make them manifest to me.
He that makes haste to be rich, even in religion, shall not be innocent . . . [of] spiritual adultery and idolatry. He that draws another to any practice before the life in his own particular [guide] lead him doth destroy the soul of that person. Keep back to the life, still waiting for the appearance and openings of the life. A few steps fetched in the life and power of God are much safer and sweeter than a hasty progress in the hasty forward spirit. To feel Christ do all in the soul is the comfort of everyone that truly believes in him.
Canst thou pray? How camest thou to learn to pray? Wast thou taught from above [or from] thine own natural part? Wast thou ever able to distinguish the sighs and groans of the spirit’s begetting from the sighs and groans of thy own natural and affectionate part? Prayer is the breath of the living child to the Father of Life, in that spirit which quickened it, which giveth it the right sense of its wants. The Father is the fountain of life, and giveth forth breathings of life to his child at his pleasure.
Testimonies—The works that flow from God’s good spirit, the works that are wrought in God, they are good works; the works ... of the new creature are good works. Make the tree good, or its fruit can never be good. Bowing to the majesty of the Lord in every thought, word, and action . . . is the true worship, and this is the rest or Sabbath wherein the true worshippers worship. It is not the church’s nature either to receive or impose yokes of bondage, but to . . . exhort all her members to stand fast, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made them free. The Lord will discover what is hurtful to the body, and contrary to the life of the body and lay yokes upon it.
The Lord is to be waited upon for the bringing forth of [unity] in the spiritual body; that, as there is a foundation of it laid in all, so all may be brought by him into the true and full oneness. The enemy will watch to divide; and if he be not watched against, in that which is able to discover and keep him out, by some device or other he will take his advantage to make a tear from the pure truth and unity of life in the body.
He which is born of God, he who is of the love, and in the love, cannot but be tender. God’s free and powerful spirit is to be waited upon . . . and not any forced to act beyond, or contrary to, the principle of his life and light in them. Yet the government of Christ and his kingdom is not opposite to any just government of a nation or people. Christ’s government is righteous government of the heart of inner man. [That of God] cannot be disloyal to [Christ] its king, to gratify the spirit of this world. As government came from God, so the righteous execution of it depends upon God. Will not the Lord assist the magistrate, who in his fear waits on him? [Were it so more often] governments would not prove so difficult, nor the success therein so dangerous. The answering and obeying the light of Christ in our consciences is what keepeth them void of offence. Christ is the sole lord and judge of the conscience. Christ giveth . . . [and] increaseth knowledge; Christ requireth obedience according to the knowledge given or increased.
Fighting in the gospel is turned inward against the lusts, and not outward against the creatures. [Those overcome in the heart by the spirit] are not prejudicial to the world . . . but emblems of that blessed state which the God of glory hath promised to set up in the world in the days of the gospels. Israel of old stood not by her strength and wisdom and preparations against her enemies, but in quietness and confidence and waiting on the Lord for direction. The present state of things may and doth require [the use of the sword], and a great blessing will attend the sword where it is borne uprightly to that end. Yea, it is far better to know the Lord to be the defender, and to wait on him daily . . . than to be ever so strong and skillful in weapons of war. Too many hold the immortal seed of life in captivity under death, over which we cannot but mourn, and wait for its breaking off the chains, and its rising out of all its graves into its own pure life, power, and fullness of liberty in the Lord.
Conclusion—And so at length we came to witness . . . a new heaven and a new earth inwardly. . . [God] giving us to partake of the well or fountain of living waters in our own hearts, which spring up freshly in us daily unto life eternal. Did we ever think, in our dry, dead, barren estate, to have seen such a day as this? There is no way of receiving Christ into the heart and of having him formed there, but by receiving the light of his spirit, in which light he is and dwells.
Faith causeth a fear and trembling to seize upon the sinner. In this fear and trembling the work of true repentance and conversion is begun and carried on; there is a turning of the soul from the darkness to the light. Faith through hope works righteousness, and teaches the true wisdom; and now the benefit of all the former trouble, anguish, and misery begins to be felt and the work goes on sweetly . . . [with] patience, meekness, gentleness, tenderness, and long-suffering. It brings [true] peace, [unspeakable] joy . . . full of glory. Here in the light, I meet with . . . God’s spirit [and wisdom], which is infallible. He opens an infallible eye [and heart], and gives to them an infallible sight of God, and the heavenly mysteries of his kingdom.
I have met with: the seed; my God; my Savior; the healings dropping upon my soul from under his wings; true knowledge; living knowledge; the seed’s father; the seed’s faith; the true birth; the true spirit of prayer and supplication; the true peace; the true holiness; the true rest of the soul. I know very well and distinctly in spirit where the doubts and disputes are, and where the certainty and full assurance is, and in the tender mercy of the Lord am preserved out of the one and into the other.
http://www.pendlehill.org/product-category/pamphlets
www.facebook.com/pendlehill?fref=ts
413. James Nayler Speaking (by Brian Drayton; 2011)
About the Author—Brian Drayton of Weare (NH) MM is a plant ecologist working in science education research. He has traveled a lot with concern to encourage Gospel ministry, & has taught Quaker history to various Quaker gatherings. He wrote Getting Rooted (PHP #391), & Selections from the Writings of James Nayler (1994)
Art thou in darkness? Mind it not, for if thou do, it will fill thee more. But stand still and act not, and wait in patience till light arise out of darkness to lead thee. James Nayler
[Introduction]—To read James Nayler is to connect with Quakerism’s initial eruption of insight and obedience, in the turmoil of the 1650’s. Other potential solutions were found deeply wanting. Those who were becoming Friends found theology, politics, personality, and the meaning of history melted down and recast in the “terror and power of the Light.” Their times [and what was shaping them] resemble ours.
Our times call us to full engagement on every level; we encounter unprecedented conditions [in population, resources, communication, exploitation, creation, & destruction]. I came to James Nayler seeking insight from a pioneering spirit at Quakerism’s roots. He helped me grapple with the questions: When we are spirit-led, what spirit leads us? How do we realize the demands and promises of Christ’s covenant? How is our inward struggle toward faithfulness and unity connected to the outward work of reconciliation?
[Nayler’s Importance]/ Nayler’s Life—Quakerism was prophetic elaboration of realization Christ’s spirit is present, active, & knowable by all who seek. Quaker vision makes claims about human nature, about the Divine’s nature, & divine-human relationships. Nayler’s writings give us valuable teaching about how hard [& freeing] it is to live under the Spirit’s direct, perceptible guidance. Today, how shall I know the Spirit’s voice, as different from my own? Which spirit should I hear? How do I distinguish between conflicting spirits? Nayler engages us with the life with the Spirit’s & its true complexity. It is tempting, comfortable, & very modern to mute or regulate our availability to the conviction & consolation that life with Christ’s Spirit brings.
James Nayler was born in Yorkshire in 1618 (6 years older than Fox). He married his wife Anne about 1639; they had 3 daughters. In his 20’s he joined Cromwell’s New Model Army, a breeding ground for radical thinking and radical religion; he was quartermaster. Nayler’s gifts as a lay preacher were called out during his service in Cromwell’s army. After he left the army, his religious search continued, and he joined himself to an independent congregation. In 1652 he met with George Fox, and this encounter must have been an encourage to his urgent calling. James’ account does not give George so decisive a role, as James was already in substantial harmony with Fox’s position and ready to join with others called in the same direction.
James was quickly recognized as a leader of the movement & had very wide service in the North of England. In the mid-1650’s Friends began their “campaign” on London and other southerly cities. During 1655-56, James was a focal point for the London work, preaching, counseling, and writing at a ferocious pace, often with little help and little break. The pressure and perhaps exhaustion was increased by James’ practice of fasting.
Fasting, overwork, and exaltation in success can perhaps explain in some measure James’ susceptibility to adulation from a small group of enthusiasts. The praise and ecstasy aimed at him had a deluding effect on his followers and himself. He was apprehended on the way to visit Fox and thrown into prison at Exeter During this period, he undertook an extended and severe fast. Several sorry interchanges between Nayler & the hard-pressed Fox, increased the sense of distance between James and his closest friends in the movement.
In the fall of 1656, James was led in a sorry reenactment of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem through the Bristol gates, [complete with adoring followers]. He was arrested, tried & convicted by Parliament. James was publicly humiliated, severely tortured & incarcerated [until 1660]. The Quaker movement was scandalized. Critics saw Nayler as proof that Friends & Ranters were kindred extravagant spirits. Leaders among Friends were brought to see how their spirituality could be deceived [& that not all inward movements were Christ’s doing].
Fox was personally affronted by James’ unwillingness to acknowledge his preeminence. It can be plausibly argued that he never really forgave James. James was released from prison in 1659. He took up ministry again. Friends said his testimony was as powerful as ever, perhaps because of his trials. On his way home to visit family in Yorkshire, he was waylaid, beaten, & robbed; he died in 1660, after 8 years as a Quaker.
Some Key Ideas in Nayler’s Writings—Nayler’s writings in prophet, pastoral messages, theological tracts, letters, and answers and challenges to opponents are extensive. His theology was rooted in his experience of and reflections on Christ’s work and nature as well as human nature and behavior. His consistent concern for souls, awareness of the subtleties of inward experience, result in passages of great sweetness and insight. Christ [is] not a “meaning,” but alive and fresh-born among us]. To allow oneself to continue in the deceit [that Christ is a meaning] is to yield to a false, self-shaped God. To Nayler, the inward appearing and work of the Christ-life is concrete, visceral, and the most precious fact of human existence. How can I possibly give it welcome, being what I am? How can the pure and holy take up residence in such a habitation? Nayler replies: “Dear Hearts, you make your own troubles, by being unwilling and disobedient to that which would lead you. I see there is no way but to go hand-in-hand with him in all things, running after him without fear or considering.”
In each of us, there's a seed that originates from God, which can form the basis of Christ's birth & burgeoning within. There's also a seed opposed to that divine seed. It's in harmony with, fed by, impulses of our bodies, [culture], and the delusive security of mental constructs. Where the life rooted in one seed predominates, the other life is repressed and in time will be eliminated. We can feel the 2 kinds of life at work within and see their fruits in our behavior. [For both seeds], their 1st stages of growth are subtle and hard to detect; [they aren’t] taken seriously. To cultivate it, we must bend low, listen sharply, wait faithfully, & cherish its every fruit.
Nayler writes: “He that believes salvation … & lives in some sin, & pleads for it, & believes he must, his faith stands in an unclean thing; an unclean thing will live by that faith …The wild plant has its liberty to grow until it overspread God's Plant … & lets not this man look for good fruit, but [fruit] of that [which] he believes.”
“[Then, there is] he that feels a strife in himself between the clean and the unclean … and believes in that which is pure, clean and just. [The pure, clean, and just] condemns the unjust and unclean. That faith stands in that which is pure, and the mystery of it is held in a pure conscience.”
“That pure faith being followed, will purify hearts & cleanse hands from unjust actions. By that faith the Just lives, & grows & springs … & the pure Plant spreads & covers the Earth with God’s knowledge, God's holi-ness & purity, & all grace in the heart. It becomes a working leaven, till it has wrought out unclean nature & conformed the whole man to himself … None can bring clean fruit out of unclean faith … Take heed of halting between God & world; what agreement can there be, or what peace, while you are married to the world?”
Once we have set out on this path, we are called to an all-or-nothing commitment. Nayler, among others, spoke insistently about the experience of incarnation—Christ’s, yes, in life of Jesus, but also the presence and work of his Spirit in our own bodies. The doctrine of 2 seeds or births speaks of being born again and the real possibility that I can grow away from God. Nayler writes: “All mind your guide within you, even the pure light of God, which bears witness against all our ungodly ways … which are after the world, and leads you without from the Lord.” We are deeply imbedded in our culture. So all-encompassing, and invisible is it, like air, that its guidance and boundaries are hardly discernible, yet all the more effective for that; [we must separate from it].
Nayler suggests that the life from which we learn shapes what lessons we can receive. “The 1st man [birth] is of the earth earthly; minds earthly things, lives in the earth, delights in the earth; ones treasure is in the earth, & ones heart [& ones god] is with it … One knows no other God, nor greater happiness than what one sees with ones carnal eyes … The first man worships a God at a distance, but knows God not, nor where he is … his worship towards Him is taught by the precepts of men … He does not look for any command from or communion with God, or answer of acceptance from God.” This person can't engage with the living God. “Before any can rightly worship God, they must wait to know His Spirit, that leads to know Him & His worship … the way to be pleasing to the Father, is to wait in the light, until you feel something of the Spirit of life … & then to that join.”
The Progress of the Soul—The 1st inward appearing of the divine life, as in the gospel story of Jesus’ birth, is small and humble, [with] small gifts of understanding. “And as the light grows, there is a discerning of things that differ, to choose the good and refuse the evil; and as the Son arises, the judgment is brought forth; all judgment is committed to the Son … Thou that loves holiness, it is near thee, power over sin and Satan is near thee, salvation is at hand; go not forth to seek that abroad which thou hast lost in thy own house.”
[There will be inward and outward opposition to the process of judgment and transformation]. One must expect tension, ridicule, and rejection—and count it as evidence that one is on the right path. Nayler asks: “Is your Christ the same that was from everlasting to everlasting, or is he changed according to the times? Dost your leader lead you out to war against the world and all the pride and glory, fashions and customs? Dost your leader beget in your hearts a new nature contrary to the world’s nature in all things?
The inward Presence is felt as blazing and revealing Light, but also as sweet growing Life. “Its hope is to outlive all wrath and contention, and to weary out all exaltation and cruelty, or whatever is of a nature contrary to itself. It sees to the end of all temptations… “Christ’s kingdom in this world … is in the heart of such as have believed in him, and owned his call out of the world … and into the will of the father ... God was just and merciful in that God did not lay all my sins before me at once, lest they should have pressed me down.”
The way we participate in Christ’s offer of atonement is in this [3-part] cleansing process The 1st part is the convincement of its necessity and possibility. The 2nd part is seeing how to move toward the Light and rely on its guidance. The 3rd part is faithfulness to what is given and not running beyond the Guide by anticipating more than what is given. If we stay in teachable place we will find a growth of understanding and of power. “As you mind only to feed on the Plant of Life, you will come to know the work of the Father in his vineyard … The work of one who is faithful is to number [the tall and strong trees other than the tree of life] to the ax, and to the fire, and not to suffer these any place in the mind … that the vine may grow alone in the chaste heart … not cumbered with that which is contrary to it.”
The Lamb’s War: Inward & Outward—In Nayler’s mind, the Lamb’s War describes the drama of salvation. The Lamb that suffers conquers the inward kingdom & ultimately transforms the outward fruits of the human heart. [The Lamb] is tendered & opened to injustice & violence, outwardly as well as inwardly. Inward & outward forces activate or counteract each other. The Lamb’s War against the Man of Sin [in the soul] is a social & revolutionary act. As the darkness is vanquished in us, we are drawn outward as well, “to judge the deceiver openly before all the creation showing that his ways & customs aren’t what God ordered for man to live in …& to redeem out of captivity all who will believe in the Lamb & are weary of service & bondage to their enemy.”
He that makes haste to be rich, even in religion, shall not be innocent . . . [of] spiritual adultery and idolatry. He that draws another to any practice before the life in his own particular [guide] lead him doth destroy the soul of that person. Keep back to the life, still waiting for the appearance and openings of the life. A few steps fetched in the life and power of God are much safer and sweeter than a hasty progress in the hasty forward spirit. To feel Christ do all in the soul is the comfort of everyone that truly believes in him.
Canst thou pray? How camest thou to learn to pray? Wast thou taught from above [or from] thine own natural part? Wast thou ever able to distinguish the sighs and groans of the spirit’s begetting from the sighs and groans of thy own natural and affectionate part? Prayer is the breath of the living child to the Father of Life, in that spirit which quickened it, which giveth it the right sense of its wants. The Father is the fountain of life, and giveth forth breathings of life to his child at his pleasure.
Testimonies—The works that flow from God’s good spirit, the works that are wrought in God, they are good works; the works ... of the new creature are good works. Make the tree good, or its fruit can never be good. Bowing to the majesty of the Lord in every thought, word, and action . . . is the true worship, and this is the rest or Sabbath wherein the true worshippers worship. It is not the church’s nature either to receive or impose yokes of bondage, but to . . . exhort all her members to stand fast, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made them free. The Lord will discover what is hurtful to the body, and contrary to the life of the body and lay yokes upon it.
The Lord is to be waited upon for the bringing forth of [unity] in the spiritual body; that, as there is a foundation of it laid in all, so all may be brought by him into the true and full oneness. The enemy will watch to divide; and if he be not watched against, in that which is able to discover and keep him out, by some device or other he will take his advantage to make a tear from the pure truth and unity of life in the body.
He which is born of God, he who is of the love, and in the love, cannot but be tender. God’s free and powerful spirit is to be waited upon . . . and not any forced to act beyond, or contrary to, the principle of his life and light in them. Yet the government of Christ and his kingdom is not opposite to any just government of a nation or people. Christ’s government is righteous government of the heart of inner man. [That of God] cannot be disloyal to [Christ] its king, to gratify the spirit of this world. As government came from God, so the righteous execution of it depends upon God. Will not the Lord assist the magistrate, who in his fear waits on him? [Were it so more often] governments would not prove so difficult, nor the success therein so dangerous. The answering and obeying the light of Christ in our consciences is what keepeth them void of offence. Christ is the sole lord and judge of the conscience. Christ giveth . . . [and] increaseth knowledge; Christ requireth obedience according to the knowledge given or increased.
Fighting in the gospel is turned inward against the lusts, and not outward against the creatures. [Those overcome in the heart by the spirit] are not prejudicial to the world . . . but emblems of that blessed state which the God of glory hath promised to set up in the world in the days of the gospels. Israel of old stood not by her strength and wisdom and preparations against her enemies, but in quietness and confidence and waiting on the Lord for direction. The present state of things may and doth require [the use of the sword], and a great blessing will attend the sword where it is borne uprightly to that end. Yea, it is far better to know the Lord to be the defender, and to wait on him daily . . . than to be ever so strong and skillful in weapons of war. Too many hold the immortal seed of life in captivity under death, over which we cannot but mourn, and wait for its breaking off the chains, and its rising out of all its graves into its own pure life, power, and fullness of liberty in the Lord.
Conclusion—And so at length we came to witness . . . a new heaven and a new earth inwardly. . . [God] giving us to partake of the well or fountain of living waters in our own hearts, which spring up freshly in us daily unto life eternal. Did we ever think, in our dry, dead, barren estate, to have seen such a day as this? There is no way of receiving Christ into the heart and of having him formed there, but by receiving the light of his spirit, in which light he is and dwells.
Faith causeth a fear and trembling to seize upon the sinner. In this fear and trembling the work of true repentance and conversion is begun and carried on; there is a turning of the soul from the darkness to the light. Faith through hope works righteousness, and teaches the true wisdom; and now the benefit of all the former trouble, anguish, and misery begins to be felt and the work goes on sweetly . . . [with] patience, meekness, gentleness, tenderness, and long-suffering. It brings [true] peace, [unspeakable] joy . . . full of glory. Here in the light, I meet with . . . God’s spirit [and wisdom], which is infallible. He opens an infallible eye [and heart], and gives to them an infallible sight of God, and the heavenly mysteries of his kingdom.
I have met with: the seed; my God; my Savior; the healings dropping upon my soul from under his wings; true knowledge; living knowledge; the seed’s father; the seed’s faith; the true birth; the true spirit of prayer and supplication; the true peace; the true holiness; the true rest of the soul. I know very well and distinctly in spirit where the doubts and disputes are, and where the certainty and full assurance is, and in the tender mercy of the Lord am preserved out of the one and into the other.
http://www.pendlehill.org/product-category/pamphlets
www.facebook.com/pendlehill?fref=ts
413. James Nayler Speaking (by Brian Drayton; 2011)
About the Author—Brian Drayton of Weare (NH) MM is a plant ecologist working in science education research. He has traveled a lot with concern to encourage Gospel ministry, & has taught Quaker history to various Quaker gatherings. He wrote Getting Rooted (PHP #391), & Selections from the Writings of James Nayler (1994)
Art thou in darkness? Mind it not, for if thou do, it will fill thee more. But stand still and act not, and wait in patience till light arise out of darkness to lead thee. James Nayler
[Introduction]—To read James Nayler is to connect with Quakerism’s initial eruption of insight and obedience, in the turmoil of the 1650’s. Other potential solutions were found deeply wanting. Those who were becoming Friends found theology, politics, personality, and the meaning of history melted down and recast in the “terror and power of the Light.” Their times [and what was shaping them] resemble ours.
Our times call us to full engagement on every level; we encounter unprecedented conditions [in population, resources, communication, exploitation, creation, & destruction]. I came to James Nayler seeking insight from a pioneering spirit at Quakerism’s roots. He helped me grapple with the questions: When we are spirit-led, what spirit leads us? How do we realize the demands and promises of Christ’s covenant? How is our inward struggle toward faithfulness and unity connected to the outward work of reconciliation?
[Nayler’s Importance]/ Nayler’s Life—Quakerism was prophetic elaboration of realization Christ’s spirit is present, active, & knowable by all who seek. Quaker vision makes claims about human nature, about the Divine’s nature, & divine-human relationships. Nayler’s writings give us valuable teaching about how hard [& freeing] it is to live under the Spirit’s direct, perceptible guidance. Today, how shall I know the Spirit’s voice, as different from my own? Which spirit should I hear? How do I distinguish between conflicting spirits? Nayler engages us with the life with the Spirit’s & its true complexity. It is tempting, comfortable, & very modern to mute or regulate our availability to the conviction & consolation that life with Christ’s Spirit brings.
James Nayler was born in Yorkshire in 1618 (6 years older than Fox). He married his wife Anne about 1639; they had 3 daughters. In his 20’s he joined Cromwell’s New Model Army, a breeding ground for radical thinking and radical religion; he was quartermaster. Nayler’s gifts as a lay preacher were called out during his service in Cromwell’s army. After he left the army, his religious search continued, and he joined himself to an independent congregation. In 1652 he met with George Fox, and this encounter must have been an encourage to his urgent calling. James’ account does not give George so decisive a role, as James was already in substantial harmony with Fox’s position and ready to join with others called in the same direction.
James was quickly recognized as a leader of the movement & had very wide service in the North of England. In the mid-1650’s Friends began their “campaign” on London and other southerly cities. During 1655-56, James was a focal point for the London work, preaching, counseling, and writing at a ferocious pace, often with little help and little break. The pressure and perhaps exhaustion was increased by James’ practice of fasting.
Fasting, overwork, and exaltation in success can perhaps explain in some measure James’ susceptibility to adulation from a small group of enthusiasts. The praise and ecstasy aimed at him had a deluding effect on his followers and himself. He was apprehended on the way to visit Fox and thrown into prison at Exeter During this period, he undertook an extended and severe fast. Several sorry interchanges between Nayler & the hard-pressed Fox, increased the sense of distance between James and his closest friends in the movement.
In the fall of 1656, James was led in a sorry reenactment of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem through the Bristol gates, [complete with adoring followers]. He was arrested, tried & convicted by Parliament. James was publicly humiliated, severely tortured & incarcerated [until 1660]. The Quaker movement was scandalized. Critics saw Nayler as proof that Friends & Ranters were kindred extravagant spirits. Leaders among Friends were brought to see how their spirituality could be deceived [& that not all inward movements were Christ’s doing].
Fox was personally affronted by James’ unwillingness to acknowledge his preeminence. It can be plausibly argued that he never really forgave James. James was released from prison in 1659. He took up ministry again. Friends said his testimony was as powerful as ever, perhaps because of his trials. On his way home to visit family in Yorkshire, he was waylaid, beaten, & robbed; he died in 1660, after 8 years as a Quaker.
Some Key Ideas in Nayler’s Writings—Nayler’s writings in prophet, pastoral messages, theological tracts, letters, and answers and challenges to opponents are extensive. His theology was rooted in his experience of and reflections on Christ’s work and nature as well as human nature and behavior. His consistent concern for souls, awareness of the subtleties of inward experience, result in passages of great sweetness and insight. Christ [is] not a “meaning,” but alive and fresh-born among us]. To allow oneself to continue in the deceit [that Christ is a meaning] is to yield to a false, self-shaped God. To Nayler, the inward appearing and work of the Christ-life is concrete, visceral, and the most precious fact of human existence. How can I possibly give it welcome, being what I am? How can the pure and holy take up residence in such a habitation? Nayler replies: “Dear Hearts, you make your own troubles, by being unwilling and disobedient to that which would lead you. I see there is no way but to go hand-in-hand with him in all things, running after him without fear or considering.”
In each of us, there's a seed that originates from God, which can form the basis of Christ's birth & burgeoning within. There's also a seed opposed to that divine seed. It's in harmony with, fed by, impulses of our bodies, [culture], and the delusive security of mental constructs. Where the life rooted in one seed predominates, the other life is repressed and in time will be eliminated. We can feel the 2 kinds of life at work within and see their fruits in our behavior. [For both seeds], their 1st stages of growth are subtle and hard to detect; [they aren’t] taken seriously. To cultivate it, we must bend low, listen sharply, wait faithfully, & cherish its every fruit.
Nayler writes: “He that believes salvation … & lives in some sin, & pleads for it, & believes he must, his faith stands in an unclean thing; an unclean thing will live by that faith …The wild plant has its liberty to grow until it overspread God's Plant … & lets not this man look for good fruit, but [fruit] of that [which] he believes.”
“[Then, there is] he that feels a strife in himself between the clean and the unclean … and believes in that which is pure, clean and just. [The pure, clean, and just] condemns the unjust and unclean. That faith stands in that which is pure, and the mystery of it is held in a pure conscience.”
“That pure faith being followed, will purify hearts & cleanse hands from unjust actions. By that faith the Just lives, & grows & springs … & the pure Plant spreads & covers the Earth with God’s knowledge, God's holi-ness & purity, & all grace in the heart. It becomes a working leaven, till it has wrought out unclean nature & conformed the whole man to himself … None can bring clean fruit out of unclean faith … Take heed of halting between God & world; what agreement can there be, or what peace, while you are married to the world?”
Once we have set out on this path, we are called to an all-or-nothing commitment. Nayler, among others, spoke insistently about the experience of incarnation—Christ’s, yes, in life of Jesus, but also the presence and work of his Spirit in our own bodies. The doctrine of 2 seeds or births speaks of being born again and the real possibility that I can grow away from God. Nayler writes: “All mind your guide within you, even the pure light of God, which bears witness against all our ungodly ways … which are after the world, and leads you without from the Lord.” We are deeply imbedded in our culture. So all-encompassing, and invisible is it, like air, that its guidance and boundaries are hardly discernible, yet all the more effective for that; [we must separate from it].
Nayler suggests that the life from which we learn shapes what lessons we can receive. “The 1st man [birth] is of the earth earthly; minds earthly things, lives in the earth, delights in the earth; ones treasure is in the earth, & ones heart [& ones god] is with it … One knows no other God, nor greater happiness than what one sees with ones carnal eyes … The first man worships a God at a distance, but knows God not, nor where he is … his worship towards Him is taught by the precepts of men … He does not look for any command from or communion with God, or answer of acceptance from God.” This person can't engage with the living God. “Before any can rightly worship God, they must wait to know His Spirit, that leads to know Him & His worship … the way to be pleasing to the Father, is to wait in the light, until you feel something of the Spirit of life … & then to that join.”
The Progress of the Soul—The 1st inward appearing of the divine life, as in the gospel story of Jesus’ birth, is small and humble, [with] small gifts of understanding. “And as the light grows, there is a discerning of things that differ, to choose the good and refuse the evil; and as the Son arises, the judgment is brought forth; all judgment is committed to the Son … Thou that loves holiness, it is near thee, power over sin and Satan is near thee, salvation is at hand; go not forth to seek that abroad which thou hast lost in thy own house.”
[There will be inward and outward opposition to the process of judgment and transformation]. One must expect tension, ridicule, and rejection—and count it as evidence that one is on the right path. Nayler asks: “Is your Christ the same that was from everlasting to everlasting, or is he changed according to the times? Dost your leader lead you out to war against the world and all the pride and glory, fashions and customs? Dost your leader beget in your hearts a new nature contrary to the world’s nature in all things?
The inward Presence is felt as blazing and revealing Light, but also as sweet growing Life. “Its hope is to outlive all wrath and contention, and to weary out all exaltation and cruelty, or whatever is of a nature contrary to itself. It sees to the end of all temptations… “Christ’s kingdom in this world … is in the heart of such as have believed in him, and owned his call out of the world … and into the will of the father ... God was just and merciful in that God did not lay all my sins before me at once, lest they should have pressed me down.”
The way we participate in Christ’s offer of atonement is in this [3-part] cleansing process The 1st part is the convincement of its necessity and possibility. The 2nd part is seeing how to move toward the Light and rely on its guidance. The 3rd part is faithfulness to what is given and not running beyond the Guide by anticipating more than what is given. If we stay in teachable place we will find a growth of understanding and of power. “As you mind only to feed on the Plant of Life, you will come to know the work of the Father in his vineyard … The work of one who is faithful is to number [the tall and strong trees other than the tree of life] to the ax, and to the fire, and not to suffer these any place in the mind … that the vine may grow alone in the chaste heart … not cumbered with that which is contrary to it.”
The Lamb’s War: Inward & Outward—In Nayler’s mind, the Lamb’s War describes the drama of salvation. The Lamb that suffers conquers the inward kingdom & ultimately transforms the outward fruits of the human heart. [The Lamb] is tendered & opened to injustice & violence, outwardly as well as inwardly. Inward & outward forces activate or counteract each other. The Lamb’s War against the Man of Sin [in the soul] is a social & revolutionary act. As the darkness is vanquished in us, we are drawn outward as well, “to judge the deceiver openly before all the creation showing that his ways & customs aren’t what God ordered for man to live in …& to redeem out of captivity all who will believe in the Lamb & are weary of service & bondage to their enemy.”
[There are] 3 important motions or responses to the Light: Waiting; Prompt Obedience; Suffering. We wait for the Light's 1st nudges & at every step. In waiting we are given power, “bread,” & insight for us to use the gift. We will be trained & led only if we act on what we are given in prompt obedience. The gift not accepted can be withdrawn. Suffering [can be what we normally think of]. Very often, “suffering” means willingness to appear a fool & to deal in love with conflicts. “God selected fools of the earth that they might put the wise to shame.”
“Dear Friends, be faithful in what you know, take heed [beware] of making a profession of what you are not … take heed of searching into the hidden things of God by your own wisdom … Turn your minds within, and wait for a wisdom from above, which begins with a fear of the Lord … There will be a death to that which is sensual and carnal; and as you grow in this pure, you will grow in the knowledge of Christ within you.”
Nayler’s Account of His Calling and His Knowledge of Christ—This is from the transcript of a trial for blasphemy. Nayler’s decisions to set off into service is an interesting case of the kind of inward impulse that can set an embodied spirit and mind in action. Nayler gives the sense of Christ alive and at work. The work Christ is doing now is the same work Jesus was about in the days of his earthly ministry.
“I was at the plow, meditating on the things of God. I heard a voice saying, ‘Get thee out from thy kindred & from thy father’s house.’ I did exceedingly rejoice, that I had heard a voice of that God I had professed from a child but had never known … I gave up my estate, cast out my money; but not being obedient going north, the wrath of God was upon me, so that I was made a wonder to all … Shortly after going agate-ward with a friend … not then thinking of any journey, I was commanded to go into the west, not knowing whither I should go nor what I was to do … Ever since I have remained, not knowing today what I was to do tomorrow.”
“[I was promised] God would be with me; which promise I find made good every day. I witness Christ in me; if I should deny him ... he would deny me before Father which is in heaven. Christ was man & “took upon him Abraham’s seed,” & was real flesh & bone; it's a mystery not known to carnal man…if he hadn’t been spiritual, he hadn't wrought my redemption. Christ fills all places, & isn’t divided. Separate God & man, & he's no more Christ … If I can’t witness Christ nearer Jerusalem I shall have no benefit by him; I own no other Christ, than who witnessed a good confession before Pontius Pilate” which Christ I witness suffering in me now.”
Why is it so hard to live up to the Light I think I have been given, and how shall I deal with failure of my good intentions? What are the differences between experiencing Christ as a “meaning” and the “true Word” or “voice of Christ”? How do you see Friends engaged in the “Lamb’s War” today?
http://www.pendlehill.org/product-category/pamphlets
www.facebook.com/pendlehill?fref=ts
167. William Penn: mystic as reflected in his writing (by Elizabeth Gray Vining; 1969)
About the Author—Elizabeth Gray Vining’s biographies include: Crown Prince Akihito; Rufus Jones; John Donne, Flora McDonald. The present work penetrates the shadow of the political and Quaker leader William Penn to reveal Penn the mystic. She also adds a perceptive word on the “tender motions of the Light” which may well be of service to present-day seekers.
“A Man, Like a Watch. . .”—Penn would appear to have been wholly an activist, [given his personality, frequent travels in his world of England, Ireland & Europe, & to the New World, & the volume of writing he did]. Yet this activist was also, like Fox, Barclay, & Penington, a mystic. He understood & valued Quaker silence and gave suggestions for its use that are valid today. The word “mystic” was used in connection with Quakerism in the 17th century by both Barclay and Penn. Penn wrote in 1671: “Oh how many profess God and Christ according to historical knowledge of both but never come to the mystical and experimental knowledge of them.”
Penn’s writings fall in categories of: letters; politics & government; religious writing (scholarly & reflective. The most consistently mystical of these writing was No Cross, No Crown. The book's 2nd version was written 12 years after 1st, & has gone through several editions during the 300 years since it was published. Penn isn't easy to read, often pompous, long-winded, & repetitious. At its best his style is vigorous, suited to his material, occasionally simple & touching, sometimes beautiful. [Penn’s writing mechanics were as erratic as his style].
Penn’s Own Experience/Inward Religion/The Nature of Light—William Penn had a mystical experience as a child that he never forgot, while his father was in political disgrace. Alone in a room he experienced a strong and comforting sense of God’s reality and presence. He wrote: "I never had any other religion than what I felt, excepting a little profession that came with education. [When my soul finally] “meeting with Truth (knowledge of that inward part that I was to have my regard to), I embraced it with gladness of heart, though it was as sharp as a well-pointed dart, because of iniquity.”
From the “outward courts and suburbs of religion” which he equated with historical Christianity he urged people to find true religion by turning inward: “The world talks of God, but what do they do? They pray for power but reject the principle in which it is. If you would know, [worship, and serve] God as you should, you must come to the means He has ordained . . . and given for that purpose.”
To Penn as to other early Quakers the light within was the light of Christ: “Wherefore salvation is not yet come into thy house, though it is come to thy door and thou has been often proffered it and professed it long. There is hopes thy day is not yet over and that repentance is not yet hid from thine eyes. His holy invitation continues to save thee.” The other names for it were: Seed; the Holy Divine Principle; Word of Truth. The Light was universal. Perhaps Penn went further than many other Friends in asserting that in all ages men had had enough of the Holy Spirit for their salvation. Penn set forth for his children in simple form his belief in the Light of Christ and its universality. [It was advice that apparently and unfortunately they did not follow]: “As you come to obey this blessed Light in its holy convictions, it will lead you out of the world’s dark and degenerate ways and works and bring you into Christ’s way and life.
The Light its own Authority—Penn wrote Some Fruits of Solitude and Essay Toward the Present & Future Peace of Europe during a time of house arrest & enforced leisure. Most Christians in the 17th century denied the possibility of continuing revelation. As Penn wrote: “The traditional Christian in his ignorant and angry mind denied any fresh manifestation of God’s power and spirit in man in these days, though never more needed to make true Christians.” “[Just as manna was] it daily must be gathered and eaten, and that manna that was gathered yesterday cannot serve today for food.” “The same sure principle of Light and Truth that hath wrought a convincement upon our understandings is able to give us that succor and support if our minds be but seriously stayed therein as shall sanctify us throughout in body, soul and spirit and so preserve us clean to God over all.”
Preparation for the Light—“True worship can only come from a heart prepared by the Lord. And whatever prayer be made or doctrine be uttered and not from the preparation of the Holy Spirit, it is not acceptable with God, nor can it be the true evangelical worship. How shall preparation for the Light be obtained? By waiting patiently yet watchfully and intently upon God. Stand still in thy mind, wait to feel something that is divine to prepare and dispose thee to worship God truly and acceptably. It is God that discovers and presses wants upon the soul, and when it cries it is God alone that supplies thee [i.e. “Waiting upon the Lord, not for him” (Brinton)].
Penn’s writings are full of admonitions to wait upon the Lord, whether alone or in company with other worshipers. In The Christian Quaker, Penn & George Whitehead answer the arguments advanced by Thomas Hicks, a Baptist, [with Penn responding from a philosophical standpoint]. “[In meeting] do you sit down in true silence, resting from your own will & workings, & waiting upon the Lord, with your minds fixed upon the Light until the Lord refresheth you and prepares your spirits and souls, to make you fit for His service?”
The Tender Motions of the Light/Silence—It is significant that the words Penn used for the apprehension of Light are so often words suggesting delicate, tender, almost imperceptible movements within the mind & heart. “The still voice isn't to be heard in the noises & hurries of the mind, but in a retired frame.” “Love silence, even in the mind, for thoughts are to that as words to the body, troublesome.” “Beware of idolatry & worshiping images ... the imaginations you have of God & which you conceive without inspiration of the Almighty... Do not bow down . . . when on the contrary it is nothing else but a mere picture of your own making.”
Distractions/A Rule to Follow—Lawful as well as unlawful thoughts are a perilous distraction in silent meditation. “You may think about lawful things unseasonably, when you should be wholly retired, or carelessly, without regard to your guide, or excessively, more than is needful.” “The Enemy will seem to act to advocate for the justice of God, that he might cast you into despondency that you may doubt of deliverance and salvation.”
In 1699 Penn wrote to his children simple directions for the daily practice of the spiritual life. “Read the Old Testament for history; the Psalms for meditation and devotion, the Prophets for comfort and hope, but especially the New Testament for doctrine, faith and worship.” “I refer you to the light and spirit of Jesus that is within you and to the scriptures of truth without you, and such other testimonies to the eternal truth as have been borne in our day. . . The evening come, read again the Scriptures.” It is disconcerting that Penn’s children turned out so badly. It is possible that they got too much good advice.
Withdrawl and Return/The Sum of it All—“Nor is a recluse life much more commendable or one whit nearer to the nature of the True Cross; for if it be not unlawful it is unnatural, which true religion teaches not. . . True godliness don’t turn men out of the world but enables them to live better in it and excites their endeavors to mend it. . . Not that I would be thought to slight a true retirement, for I do not only acknowledge but admire solitude. Christ himself was an example of it; He loved and chose to frequent mountains, gardens, seasides. [Indeed, Penn thought it necessary for the afflicted, the tempted, the solitary and the devout to be] “thereby strengthened [that they] may with more power over their own spirits, enter into the business of the world again.”
The inward communion with the divine led to something positive in the outward life, not merely to comfortable and pleasant feelings. The Light first of all lit the dark places and revealed the sin in one’s life and then gave the power to get rid of the sin. The life was changed and for the better. The soul was called to good works. The virtues [gained] are those of the Sermon on the Mount and Paul’s Epistles, which early Quakers took to be not only enjoined but possible to achieve.
Penn was concerned with economic justice too, [about] alleviating the poor’s condition not by condescending gifts but by justice. [As active as he was], he might have been more sensitive than most to the dangers of overdoing service. He cautioned about the necessity of distinguishing between that which issued from one’s own will and that which came from the will and motion of the spirit of God in oneself. “Run not in your own wills. Wait for His word of command.”
Like most true mystics Penn in the end came to the simplicity & power of love. “Nor can spirits ever be divided that love & live in the same Divine Principle, the root and record of their friendship.” To Penn at the end of his active and often turbulent life, the essence of all religion was the love of God: the love of God for man, the love of man for God and for his fellow man in God: “Love is the hardest lesson in Christianity, but for that lesson it should be most our care to learn it. Difficilia quae pulchara [Things that are excellent are difficult].” “Love is above all, and when it prevails in us we shall all be lovely and in love with God and one with another.”
http://www.pendlehill.org/product-category/pamphlets
www.facebook.com/pendlehill?fref=ts
30. William Penn’s No Cross, No Crown (Abridged by Anna Brinton; 1945)
About the Editor—Anna Cox Brinton was born in San Jose, CA October 19, 1887; she was a Quaker pacifist. She and her husband Howard had solid background of academic achievement at the colleges of Mills & Earlham, & in 1936 became co-directors of a Quaker fusion of school & community. She was AFSC Commissioner for Asia in 1946; she served as AFSC International Program director. They retired in the 1950s & lived on the Pendle Hill campus as Directors Emeriti. Anna died in 1969. Foreword—This pamphlet was published in October 1944, the 300th anniversary of William Penn's birth. Pamphlets #28-30 summarize Barclay's Apology, Isaac Penington's works, and Penn's No Cross, No Crown, respectively. Barclay deals with belief, Penington with experience, and Penn with practice. Curing the defection of those who "profess Christianity," comes through "that divine grace and power by which the wills of men are made conformable to the will of God." Every excess is adverse to religion and public welfare. "True Godliness does not take men out of the world, but enables them to live better in it and excites their endeavors to mend it ... Christians should ... not meanly steal out of the stern of the world, and leave those in it without a pilot."
“Dear Friends, be faithful in what you know, take heed [beware] of making a profession of what you are not … take heed of searching into the hidden things of God by your own wisdom … Turn your minds within, and wait for a wisdom from above, which begins with a fear of the Lord … There will be a death to that which is sensual and carnal; and as you grow in this pure, you will grow in the knowledge of Christ within you.”
Nayler’s Account of His Calling and His Knowledge of Christ—This is from the transcript of a trial for blasphemy. Nayler’s decisions to set off into service is an interesting case of the kind of inward impulse that can set an embodied spirit and mind in action. Nayler gives the sense of Christ alive and at work. The work Christ is doing now is the same work Jesus was about in the days of his earthly ministry.
“I was at the plow, meditating on the things of God. I heard a voice saying, ‘Get thee out from thy kindred & from thy father’s house.’ I did exceedingly rejoice, that I had heard a voice of that God I had professed from a child but had never known … I gave up my estate, cast out my money; but not being obedient going north, the wrath of God was upon me, so that I was made a wonder to all … Shortly after going agate-ward with a friend … not then thinking of any journey, I was commanded to go into the west, not knowing whither I should go nor what I was to do … Ever since I have remained, not knowing today what I was to do tomorrow.”
“[I was promised] God would be with me; which promise I find made good every day. I witness Christ in me; if I should deny him ... he would deny me before Father which is in heaven. Christ was man & “took upon him Abraham’s seed,” & was real flesh & bone; it's a mystery not known to carnal man…if he hadn’t been spiritual, he hadn't wrought my redemption. Christ fills all places, & isn’t divided. Separate God & man, & he's no more Christ … If I can’t witness Christ nearer Jerusalem I shall have no benefit by him; I own no other Christ, than who witnessed a good confession before Pontius Pilate” which Christ I witness suffering in me now.”
Why is it so hard to live up to the Light I think I have been given, and how shall I deal with failure of my good intentions? What are the differences between experiencing Christ as a “meaning” and the “true Word” or “voice of Christ”? How do you see Friends engaged in the “Lamb’s War” today?
http://www.pendlehill.org/product-category/pamphlets
www.facebook.com/pendlehill?fref=ts
167. William Penn: mystic as reflected in his writing (by Elizabeth Gray Vining; 1969)
About the Author—Elizabeth Gray Vining’s biographies include: Crown Prince Akihito; Rufus Jones; John Donne, Flora McDonald. The present work penetrates the shadow of the political and Quaker leader William Penn to reveal Penn the mystic. She also adds a perceptive word on the “tender motions of the Light” which may well be of service to present-day seekers.
“A Man, Like a Watch. . .”—Penn would appear to have been wholly an activist, [given his personality, frequent travels in his world of England, Ireland & Europe, & to the New World, & the volume of writing he did]. Yet this activist was also, like Fox, Barclay, & Penington, a mystic. He understood & valued Quaker silence and gave suggestions for its use that are valid today. The word “mystic” was used in connection with Quakerism in the 17th century by both Barclay and Penn. Penn wrote in 1671: “Oh how many profess God and Christ according to historical knowledge of both but never come to the mystical and experimental knowledge of them.”
Penn’s writings fall in categories of: letters; politics & government; religious writing (scholarly & reflective. The most consistently mystical of these writing was No Cross, No Crown. The book's 2nd version was written 12 years after 1st, & has gone through several editions during the 300 years since it was published. Penn isn't easy to read, often pompous, long-winded, & repetitious. At its best his style is vigorous, suited to his material, occasionally simple & touching, sometimes beautiful. [Penn’s writing mechanics were as erratic as his style].
Penn’s Own Experience/Inward Religion/The Nature of Light—William Penn had a mystical experience as a child that he never forgot, while his father was in political disgrace. Alone in a room he experienced a strong and comforting sense of God’s reality and presence. He wrote: "I never had any other religion than what I felt, excepting a little profession that came with education. [When my soul finally] “meeting with Truth (knowledge of that inward part that I was to have my regard to), I embraced it with gladness of heart, though it was as sharp as a well-pointed dart, because of iniquity.”
From the “outward courts and suburbs of religion” which he equated with historical Christianity he urged people to find true religion by turning inward: “The world talks of God, but what do they do? They pray for power but reject the principle in which it is. If you would know, [worship, and serve] God as you should, you must come to the means He has ordained . . . and given for that purpose.”
To Penn as to other early Quakers the light within was the light of Christ: “Wherefore salvation is not yet come into thy house, though it is come to thy door and thou has been often proffered it and professed it long. There is hopes thy day is not yet over and that repentance is not yet hid from thine eyes. His holy invitation continues to save thee.” The other names for it were: Seed; the Holy Divine Principle; Word of Truth. The Light was universal. Perhaps Penn went further than many other Friends in asserting that in all ages men had had enough of the Holy Spirit for their salvation. Penn set forth for his children in simple form his belief in the Light of Christ and its universality. [It was advice that apparently and unfortunately they did not follow]: “As you come to obey this blessed Light in its holy convictions, it will lead you out of the world’s dark and degenerate ways and works and bring you into Christ’s way and life.
The Light its own Authority—Penn wrote Some Fruits of Solitude and Essay Toward the Present & Future Peace of Europe during a time of house arrest & enforced leisure. Most Christians in the 17th century denied the possibility of continuing revelation. As Penn wrote: “The traditional Christian in his ignorant and angry mind denied any fresh manifestation of God’s power and spirit in man in these days, though never more needed to make true Christians.” “[Just as manna was] it daily must be gathered and eaten, and that manna that was gathered yesterday cannot serve today for food.” “The same sure principle of Light and Truth that hath wrought a convincement upon our understandings is able to give us that succor and support if our minds be but seriously stayed therein as shall sanctify us throughout in body, soul and spirit and so preserve us clean to God over all.”
Preparation for the Light—“True worship can only come from a heart prepared by the Lord. And whatever prayer be made or doctrine be uttered and not from the preparation of the Holy Spirit, it is not acceptable with God, nor can it be the true evangelical worship. How shall preparation for the Light be obtained? By waiting patiently yet watchfully and intently upon God. Stand still in thy mind, wait to feel something that is divine to prepare and dispose thee to worship God truly and acceptably. It is God that discovers and presses wants upon the soul, and when it cries it is God alone that supplies thee [i.e. “Waiting upon the Lord, not for him” (Brinton)].
Penn’s writings are full of admonitions to wait upon the Lord, whether alone or in company with other worshipers. In The Christian Quaker, Penn & George Whitehead answer the arguments advanced by Thomas Hicks, a Baptist, [with Penn responding from a philosophical standpoint]. “[In meeting] do you sit down in true silence, resting from your own will & workings, & waiting upon the Lord, with your minds fixed upon the Light until the Lord refresheth you and prepares your spirits and souls, to make you fit for His service?”
The Tender Motions of the Light/Silence—It is significant that the words Penn used for the apprehension of Light are so often words suggesting delicate, tender, almost imperceptible movements within the mind & heart. “The still voice isn't to be heard in the noises & hurries of the mind, but in a retired frame.” “Love silence, even in the mind, for thoughts are to that as words to the body, troublesome.” “Beware of idolatry & worshiping images ... the imaginations you have of God & which you conceive without inspiration of the Almighty... Do not bow down . . . when on the contrary it is nothing else but a mere picture of your own making.”
Distractions/A Rule to Follow—Lawful as well as unlawful thoughts are a perilous distraction in silent meditation. “You may think about lawful things unseasonably, when you should be wholly retired, or carelessly, without regard to your guide, or excessively, more than is needful.” “The Enemy will seem to act to advocate for the justice of God, that he might cast you into despondency that you may doubt of deliverance and salvation.”
In 1699 Penn wrote to his children simple directions for the daily practice of the spiritual life. “Read the Old Testament for history; the Psalms for meditation and devotion, the Prophets for comfort and hope, but especially the New Testament for doctrine, faith and worship.” “I refer you to the light and spirit of Jesus that is within you and to the scriptures of truth without you, and such other testimonies to the eternal truth as have been borne in our day. . . The evening come, read again the Scriptures.” It is disconcerting that Penn’s children turned out so badly. It is possible that they got too much good advice.
Withdrawl and Return/The Sum of it All—“Nor is a recluse life much more commendable or one whit nearer to the nature of the True Cross; for if it be not unlawful it is unnatural, which true religion teaches not. . . True godliness don’t turn men out of the world but enables them to live better in it and excites their endeavors to mend it. . . Not that I would be thought to slight a true retirement, for I do not only acknowledge but admire solitude. Christ himself was an example of it; He loved and chose to frequent mountains, gardens, seasides. [Indeed, Penn thought it necessary for the afflicted, the tempted, the solitary and the devout to be] “thereby strengthened [that they] may with more power over their own spirits, enter into the business of the world again.”
The inward communion with the divine led to something positive in the outward life, not merely to comfortable and pleasant feelings. The Light first of all lit the dark places and revealed the sin in one’s life and then gave the power to get rid of the sin. The life was changed and for the better. The soul was called to good works. The virtues [gained] are those of the Sermon on the Mount and Paul’s Epistles, which early Quakers took to be not only enjoined but possible to achieve.
Penn was concerned with economic justice too, [about] alleviating the poor’s condition not by condescending gifts but by justice. [As active as he was], he might have been more sensitive than most to the dangers of overdoing service. He cautioned about the necessity of distinguishing between that which issued from one’s own will and that which came from the will and motion of the spirit of God in oneself. “Run not in your own wills. Wait for His word of command.”
Like most true mystics Penn in the end came to the simplicity & power of love. “Nor can spirits ever be divided that love & live in the same Divine Principle, the root and record of their friendship.” To Penn at the end of his active and often turbulent life, the essence of all religion was the love of God: the love of God for man, the love of man for God and for his fellow man in God: “Love is the hardest lesson in Christianity, but for that lesson it should be most our care to learn it. Difficilia quae pulchara [Things that are excellent are difficult].” “Love is above all, and when it prevails in us we shall all be lovely and in love with God and one with another.”
http://www.pendlehill.org/product-category/pamphlets
www.facebook.com/pendlehill?fref=ts
About the Editor—Anna Cox Brinton was born in San Jose, CA October 19, 1887; she was a Quaker pacifist. She and her husband Howard had solid background of academic achievement at the colleges of Mills & Earlham, & in 1936 became co-directors of a Quaker fusion of school & community. She was AFSC Commissioner for Asia in 1946; she served as AFSC International Program director. They retired in the 1950s & lived on the Pendle Hill campus as Directors Emeriti. Anna died in 1969. Foreword—This pamphlet was published in October 1944, the 300th anniversary of William Penn's birth. Pamphlets #28-30 summarize Barclay's Apology, Isaac Penington's works, and Penn's No Cross, No Crown, respectively. Barclay deals with belief, Penington with experience, and Penn with practice. Curing the defection of those who "profess Christianity," comes through "that divine grace and power by which the wills of men are made conformable to the will of God." Every excess is adverse to religion and public welfare. "True Godliness does not take men out of the world, but enables them to live better in it and excites their endeavors to mend it ... Christians should ... not meanly steal out of the stern of the world, and leave those in it without a pilot."
Introduction [About William Penn and No Cross, No Crown]—The traveling Friend Thomas Loe provided the title for Penn's best known religious book. Penn heard Loe preach when Penn was 12 and 23. From his death bed, Loe instructed Penn to "bear the cross ... and God will give thee an eternal crown of glory. Soon after Loe's death, Penn spent 8 months in London's Tower for blasphemy. His earliest version of No Cross, No Crown, some 111 pages, was printed in 1669. [He first addressed 8 of his personal friends: "Be you entreated to eye that Divine principle engrafted on your minds ... [with holy] self-denying instructions, that ... you may be weaned from the glittering follies of the world and sensibly experiment the delights of the soul."
[The title's promise of reward may seem too worldly for modern tastes, but early Friends were determined to see & share their direct experiences of God in the Light of Scriptural experiences], & both Testaments abound in promises of rewards. The crown which results from the cross is the invisible sign of "temperance & sanctity of the mind." "Mind not the difficulties of your march. Great & good things [are rendered more enjoyable,] pleasant and glorious in the end." [Penn saw honoring all men, fair distribution of resources, intelligent husbandry, and relief of the suffering poor, as having priority over pleasure. His argument was that if the rich young man of Scripture had enjoyed his possessions with "Christian indifference" they might have been continued.
Half or more of this pamphlet is quotations. Penn believed in "the power which examples and authorities have put upon the minds of the people, above the most reasonable and pressing arguments." In the years that followed, [in the midst of persecution,] Penn was engaged in a steady struggle for liberty of conscience. In 1670, Admiral Penn died; in 1672, Penn married Gulielma Springett. In 1681, Penn received from Charles II a huge tract of land in payment of debts to his father, i.e. Pennsylvania.
In 1682, a 2nd edition of 600 pages appeared. It was reprinted more than 50 times; 1 Dutch, 2 French, & 2 German translations were published, [possibly more, over the next 165 years]. This abbreviated pamphlet uses parts of long & short versions; in 3 places in this pamphlet, 1694's amplification is included. In reducing text to ½ the early version, & 1/10 of the 1682 edition the argument has been preserved [Summary Editor's Note: Further summarizing in this summary makes it 1/6 & 1/30 of the originals, respectively]. Quotations are mainly omitted.
The whole emphasis is on conduct as expression of obedience to God. [There is an account of Stephen Grellet, a French refugee who read No Cross, No Crown, language dictionary in hand, twice]. He said: "I had never met with anything of the kind; neither had I felt the Divine witness in me operating so powerfully before." Penn's exhortations still retain their reaching power. Because of his exuberant fluency, [this abridgement was prepared], preserving the essence which has not grown obsolete. As young William Penn wrote in London's Tower: "So shall we be delivered from every snare, no sin shall gain us, no frowns scare us and the Truth shall be more abundantly exalted." ANNA BRINTON
Preface—Reader, I seek thy salvation. A Refiner has come near thee, his grace appeared to thee. His medicine will cure thee; he is as infallible as free; without money & with certainty. What must we do, to be witnesses of his power & love? Christ's Cross is Christ's way to Christ's Crown. That is the following discourse's subject, that thou, mayst be won to [or brought nearer to] Christ. I have tasted Christ's judgments, his mercies, & the world's frowns & reproaches. May God turn my country & the Christian world from envy, hatred, bitterness, ambition & covetousness, for which they fill the earth with trouble & oppression. & in receiving Christ's spirit, may they make triple league against the world, flesh, & devil, mankind's only [true] common enemies. Through self-denial & the cross of Jesus, may they attain God's eternal rest & kingdom. WILLIAM PENN
The Defection of Christendom—Though knowledge and obedience to the Christ's cross doctrine is of infinite moment to men's souls, it is so little understood, so much neglected, and so bitterly contradicted by the [behavior] of professed Christian, that the majority of Christendom miserably deceive and disappoint themselves [as to what] Christianity is. There seems to be very little left of Christianity but the name. They truly worship the god of the world. The false Christians have [for centuries] professed, betrayed, persecuted, and crucified him, by perpetual apostasy from the self-denial of his doctrine; their lives give lie to their faith. The common apprehension—that they may be God's children while disobeying God's commandments—is the most pernicious to their eternal condition. Their mistake about their duty to God is as mischievous as their rebellion against him.
The Remedy—How can Christ be thy Lord when thou dost not obey him? How canst thou be Christ's servant & never serve him? Christ is the world's great spiritual light; it lights everyone coming into the world. He manifests to them their deeds of wickedness & reproves them. Thou, like the inns of old, have been full of other guests. Salvation isn't yet come into thy house. If his light yet shines & reproves thee still, there is hope thy day isn't over, nor is repentance hid from thine eyes. God so blessed the faithful labors of these poor mechanics [the apostles], that thousands of strangers to his spirit's work, were inwardly quickened to the word of life. The ways of their enemies took to destroy increased them. They chose to sustain the afflictions of Christ's true pilgrims rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin.
[Early] Christendom was meek, merciful, self-denying, suffering, & holy. Christendom now is superstitious, persecuting, malicious, lascivious, lying, oppressing. The undoubted reason of degeneracy is thy mind's disregard of Christ's light shining in thee. [Disregard of that light & graces that examines] the most secret thoughts & purposes of thine heart & reproves that which is unfruitful, [leads to] the restless enemy of man's good taking advantage of this slackness. Thy inclinations made his conquest over thee easy. Formality replaced the power of godliness; superstition replaced Christ's institutions; tradition replaced experience; letter replaced life. Worldly pleasures became thy life's study, care & pleasure. Thy condition is worse by thy religion, because thou art temp-ted to think thyself better for it & art not. Thou omitted taking up Christ's holy yoke & bearing thy daily cross.
The Cross/ Self Denial—The Cross mystical is that divine grace and power which crosseth the carnal wills of men, [becoming] the instrument of man's holy dying to the world and being made conformable to the will of God. Where does this cross appear, and where must it be taken up? Because the cross must be where sin is, it must be in the heart and soul. The enemies' temptations are ever directed to the mind; if they take not, the soul sins not; if they are embraced, inordinate desires are presently conceived. The cross is to be daily borne by an inward submission of the soul to the will of God, manifested by Christ's light in the consciences of men.
What is the great work and business of [one who respects the cross]? It is self-denial. What is our cup and cross that we should drink and suffer? They are to do or suffer the will of God for God's service and glory, the true life and obedience of the cross of Jesus. The great Alexanders and mighty Caesars vanguished others, not themselves; Christ conquered self, that ever vanguished the great. Misery and slavery followed all their victories; Christ's brought greater freedom and happiness to those he overcame; they pleased themselves; Christ aimed to please his Father. There is a lawful and an unlawful self; both must be denied.
The lawful self which we are to deny is conveniency, ease, and plenty, the [worldly] blessing and bounty of God [e.g. family, wealth, liberty, and life]. When they are brought in competition with God, they must be denied. Christ had the eternal joy in his eye as recompense. Christ's disciples have the eternal crown of righteousness as reward for their holy neglect, yea, even contempt of the world. There is no room for instruction where lawful self is lord and not servant. For though I have a most powerful persuasion, and clear conviction on my soul of this or that, considering how unmodish it is, what enemies it has, and how strange and singular I shall seem to them, I hope God will pity my weakness. Thus selfish, fearful man. Deliberating is ever the worst, for the soul loses in parlay. Never did God convince people; upon submission, God empowered them. In their in-creases they are not lifted up, nor in their adversities are they cast down,. They are moderated in the one, and comforted in the other, by God's divine presence.
The Unlawful Self—The unlawful self relates to religious worship & to moral and civil conversation in the world. Christ drew off from worship in the outward temple, & instituted a more inward & spiritual cult. In order to serve or have acceptance with God, you must bow to the Spirit's instructions & commands in your souls; [worship God in your souls], encloistered from sin. Christ's cross overcomes the world, & leads a life of purity in the face of its allurements. Christian life's perfection extends to every honest labor used among men. "True Godliness doesn't take men out of the world, but enables them to live better in it & excites their endeavors to mend it ... Christians shouldn't ... meanly steal out of the stern of the world, & leave those in it without a pilot." The inward righteousness of Jesus is [different from] all the contrived devotion of poor superstitious man. The soul awakened & preserved by God's holy power & spirit worships God in God's own spirit. Christ was an ex-ample of true retirement. They are requisite to piety's growth. It is an error not to use monastic lives & to not provide it for the afflicted, tempted, solitary, & devout. Strengthened [by true retirement], they might with more power over their own spirits enter into the world's business again. Divine pleasures are found in a free solitude.
Worship—Not taking up the cross in worship has been a great cause of the troublesome superstition that is yet in the world. True worship can only come from a heart prepared by the Lord, spoken by the Spirit in the soul 's language. Christ taught his disciples to pray [his prayers]. As the disciples then, so we now are not to pray our prayers but those [the inner Christ] enables us to make.
Preparation. How shall a "heart prepared by the Lord" be obtained? Wait patiently, watchfully, and intently upon God. Here, one groan, one sigh from a wounded soul, a heart touched with true remorse, excel and prevails with God over the most composed matter, cast into the aptest phrase. Stand still in thy mind, wait to feel something that is divine to prepare and dispose thee to worship truly, shutting out even what is lawful at another season. Petitions from [the unprepared] are formal and fictitious.
Inward Want/ Purification. Those that [don't recognize] inward wants, that have no fears nor terrors upon them, & feel no need of God's power, [don't know, want, or desire] what they pray for. [Their prayers for God's will grace, & spirit are hypocritical]. How can worship instituted by Christ include those unprepared for worship, those who daily have unclean thoughts, words, & deeds? The unclean can't acceptably worship the holy. The soul must be touched, raised in heavenly desires by heavenly spirit; true worship is in God's presence.
Baptism/ Faith. Christ expressly charged his disciples they should wait until they had received the Holy Ghost's baptism as preparation for the Gospel's preaching. If so much waiting and spiritual preparation was needed for preaching, some at least may be needful to fit us to speak to God. We should learn whether [our trials] are not sent as a blessing. How to pray is still of greater moment than [actual praying]. 'Tis faith that animates prayer and presses it home. With one grain of it, more is done and received, than by all the running, willings, and toilings of man. No one can pray to purpose without faith. It is a holy resignation to God and confidence in God, which gives sure evidence to the soul of things not seen, and a sense of those things hoped for.
Pride: Knowledge—Pride is an excess of self-love, an undervaluing of others, and seeking dominion over them. [Pride is displayed] in: inordinate pursuit of knowledge; seeking and craving after power, and others showing one respect and deference; worldly furniture and ornaments. In pursuit of knowledge, Adam would needs be wiser than God made him, indeed as wise as God. They exchanged innocency for guilt. He who tempted them furnished them with vain knowledge, harmful wisdom, the skill of lies, evasions, and excuses; they lost their plainness and sincerity. When thou doest the thing thou ought not do, thou shalt no more enjoy the comfort of God's peaceful spirit, God's love, or the evidence of a good conscience.
Fallen Adam's knowledge of God stood no more in a daily experience [& refreshment] of the love & work of God in one's soul, but in a notion of what one once did know & experience. The religion of apostate Christians [today is based on] what they once knew [personally] of God's work, which they revolted from, or in a historical belief & an imaginary conception of the experience & prophecies of God's holy men & women. The knowledge of degenerated & unmortified men is impure, unpeaceable, cross, perverse & persecuting, jealous, & abusing of those who are better than them. The false prophets were ever sure to persecute the true ones as false.
[So too with those whose] hypocrisy Christ cried out against. They sought honor from men, [& wouldn't have Christ] "take away our credit with the people." Christ came to level their honor, to bring people to that in-ward knowledge of God. Worldly wisdom was a hindrance to the true knowledge of God. [Apostates] seemed addicted to an adoration of his name, yet they are so far from Christianity's inward power & life that their respect was mainly formal & ceremonious. Love, meekness & self-denial was lost [as they] perplexed the church with dubious questions, drawing people into parties [& spilling blood], as if they had been the worse for being once Christians. [And in all their bloody striving to convert] the people aren't converted but further debased by their efforts. O, those who seek the narrow way. Thou mustn't look to thy tempter, but at thy preserver; retire to thy solitudes; be chaste pilgrims in this evil world; thus thou wilt arrive to knowledge of God & Christ.
Power/ Respect. Pride does extremely crave power; [obviously], nothing has proved more troublesome and destructive to mankind. No matter who, nor how many, are slain, made widows and orphans, or lose their estates and livelihoods, what towns, cities, countries are ruined, if by all these things the ambitious can but arrive at their ends. Ambition 'tis too natural to every private breast to strain for power. We daily see how much men labor their utmost wit and interest to be great. People profess Christianity but they follow the world. Great is their peace who are not careful to be great but, being great, are humble, and do good. Such keep their wits with their consciences, and with an even mind can at all times measure the uneven world.
The world's practice, even now, will tell us that not striking a flag & not saluting certain ports—yea less things— give rise to mighty wars between states, to the expense of much treasure & blood. [In personal terms, is taking offense & taking to arms & combat because a civil hat salute was not returned worth one man's life, considering the importance of the man's life to God, himself, & society? If our religious society is mistaken in declining some popular worldly customs of respect, rather pity & inform, than despise & abuse, our simplicity.
In the fear and presence of the all-seeing just God, the world's present honors and respect became burdensome to us. We saw that they came from an ill root and only delighted a vain and ill mind, and that much pride and folly were in them. Nothing is small that God makes a matter of conscience. [And so] we only passively let fall the practice of what is vain and unchristian. [God presents God's gifts] with very different appearances to the world's settled customs, thereby contradicting human invention. If the test of the rough and homely outside of truth doesn't keep their minds from the reception of it [and its inner beauty], it makes a great discovery upon them. The truth teaches us to despise the false reputations of the world, ... and to overcome their injuries and reproaches. It weans thee off thy familiars, ... & lists thee of the blessed company of the mocked persecuted Jesus.
Honor, esteem, & regard thou owest to all, & if to all, then thy inferior. How & why do we show honor to all? They are God's creations, so be natural, & assist them with what thou canst [& pay them real respect]. Christians show respect, but the difference lies in the nature of their respect. The Christian's motive is the sense of ones duty in God's sight to parents, magistrates, inferior relations, & then to all people, according to their virtue, wisdom, & piety. Let Christians examine what of them & about them agrees with Christ's doctrine & life.
Thou for You/ Rank and Beauty—"Thou" looked too lean and thin a respect to proud emperors, who would have a style suitable to their own ambition; we cannot build our practice on that. In things reasonable or indifferent custom is obliging or harmless, yet in things unreasonable or unlawful she has no authority. To use the same word for one or many, only to please a proud, haughty humor, is not reasonable in our sense. It isn't only "Thou" or title we boggle at, but the esteem and value the vain minds of men do put upon them, that constrains us to steadily testify against them. The certain sense I had from the Lord of their contrariety to the meek and self-denying life of holy Jesus required my disuse of them and testimony against them.
Pride stops not there. She excites people to an excessive value & care of: great & punctual attendance; stately furniture; rich, exact apparel; pretenses to blood or beauty. Nothing of man's folly has less show of reason to disguise folly than [the quest for noble blood]. Wealth & titles fills no man's head with brains, nor heart with truth. If great men's hearts be equal to their abilities to do good, they are blessings to the people of any country. If there be any advantage in [noble descent], 'tis not from blood, but education, which has a mighty influence & strong bias upon affections & actions of men. Pride leads [common] folk to a fond value of their person, especially if they have pretense to shape or beauty. It would abate their folly [if they spent half the time to think of God which they spend in washing, perfuming, painting, & dressing. The pride of one might comfortably supply the need of 10. This sort of pride has been fatal to the sobriety, virtue, peace, & health of families in this kingdom.
Human Relations/ Wealth—Pride destroys relationships; love becomes fear, makes the wife a servant, & the children & servants slaves. The proud man is an ill neighbor; he is an enemy to hospitality, because he would show none, nor be thought to need it. He values others for service only. Pride is more dangerous in greatness; private ambition becomes tyranny in great men. Proud great men leave their real interest to follow an [obsessive idea], & are almost ever destroyed by it. Pride is intolerable in "men of religion," since religion rebukes it.
Avarice isn't observeable or obnoxious to the law as other vices are, so there is more danger for want of that check. Most people strive for wealth not substance. Liberal spending of money, though sinful, 'tis more commendable than love of money for money's sake, one of the basest passions man's mind can be captivated by. People should [start a continuous] examination of how far this temptation hath entered them, because its [progress] into the mind is almost insensible. Wealth tends to corruption, & the reason why some have too little, & [have to work too hard], is because the rich hold hard, to be richer & covet more. Covetousness has caused family feuds, betrayal of friendships, & losing the ability to love better things. The covetous man is an enemy to the state, for he spirits their money away; a disease to the body politic, for he obstructs the circulation of the blood; [the law ought to purge him]. [The rich will receive no consolation in heaven], unless they are willing to become poor men, can resign all, live loose to the world, have it at arm's end, yea, underfoot, a servant, and not a master.
Luxury—Luxury is a disease as epidemical as killing, it creeps into all stations & ranks of men, the poorest often exceeding their ability to indulge their appetite, & the rich frequently wallowing in [what] pleases the eyes & flesh. Luxuries belong not to Jesus' & his true disciples' holy path. Those living lavishly forget the giver, abuse the gift, lose tenderness, forget duty, and be overcome with voluptuousness. For Adam and Eve, the best recreations were to serve God, be just, follow vocations, mind flocks, do good, exercise [so as to promote] gravity, temperance, and virtue. What expense of precious time is [wasted] on things that perish?
Numerous fashions & recreations are the invention of vain, idle minds, or the way indigent, impoverished wits, have chosen to earn their living. They ought to be detested as diverting from more lawful, serviceable, & necessary employments. [No such recreation & frivolity is to be found in the lives of the inspirational figures in the Bible]. To anyone concerned with those whose livelihoods depend on such fashions & recreations: If you & they have made wickedness your pleasure & your profit, be ye content that it should be your grief & punishment.
If the landlords had less lusts to satisfy, the tenants might have less rent to pay, and turn from poor to rich. The burden is heavier on the laborious country that so many hands and shoulders of lust-caterers of the cities should be wanting to the plough and the useful husbandry. Let vanity-hucksters retreat and spend it more honestly than they have got it; & such as really are poor be rather helped to better callings. We must testify against such extravagant vanity. What God hath made is good, but in the whole catalogue the scriptures give, I never found the attires, recreations & way of living, so much in request with the called Christians of these times. God created man a holy, wise, sober, grave, and reasonable creature, fit to himself and the world.
The Public Good—Every one should be so wise as to deny oneself the use of any indifferent enjoyments that might be an encouragement to ones neighbor's folly. It is incumbent on all to only make what is necessary to life and godliness, and to employ their freedom with most advantage to the neighbors. Then that plain-hearted, downright, harmless life would be restored of not much caring what we eat, drink, or put on. It is the interest of good government to curb and rebuke excesses; it prevents many mischiefs. It keeps out foreign vanities and improves our own commodities. That the cart, plow, and thrash should be laid upon 19 parts of the land to feed the inordinate lusts and appetites of the 20th, is so far from the appointment of the God of the spirits of all flesh, that it is a wretched and blasphemous injustice. God made [us] stewards to each other's exigencies and relief.
If the money which is expended in every parish in vain fashions could be collected in a public stock, [there would be help for broken tenants, those able to work, beggars, the aged and impotent. The exchequer's emergency needs might be supplied by such a bank. Jesus' self-denying religion, his life and doctrine are a perpetual reproach to most Christians. He was humble, they proud; he forgiving, they revengeful; he meek, they fierce; he plain, they gaudy; he a pilgrim on earth, they citizens of the world.
Oh Lord God I pray thee, make an end of sin, & finish transgression, & bring in the everlasting righteousness to the souls of all, that thy poor creation may be delivered from bondage, and the earth enjoy her sabbath again, that thy great name may be lifted up in all nations, and thy salvation renowned to the ends of the world.
http://www.pendlehill.org/product-category/pamphlets
www.facebook.com/pendlehill?fref=ts
[The title's promise of reward may seem too worldly for modern tastes, but early Friends were determined to see & share their direct experiences of God in the Light of Scriptural experiences], & both Testaments abound in promises of rewards. The crown which results from the cross is the invisible sign of "temperance & sanctity of the mind." "Mind not the difficulties of your march. Great & good things [are rendered more enjoyable,] pleasant and glorious in the end." [Penn saw honoring all men, fair distribution of resources, intelligent husbandry, and relief of the suffering poor, as having priority over pleasure. His argument was that if the rich young man of Scripture had enjoyed his possessions with "Christian indifference" they might have been continued.
Half or more of this pamphlet is quotations. Penn believed in "the power which examples and authorities have put upon the minds of the people, above the most reasonable and pressing arguments." In the years that followed, [in the midst of persecution,] Penn was engaged in a steady struggle for liberty of conscience. In 1670, Admiral Penn died; in 1672, Penn married Gulielma Springett. In 1681, Penn received from Charles II a huge tract of land in payment of debts to his father, i.e. Pennsylvania.
In 1682, a 2nd edition of 600 pages appeared. It was reprinted more than 50 times; 1 Dutch, 2 French, & 2 German translations were published, [possibly more, over the next 165 years]. This abbreviated pamphlet uses parts of long & short versions; in 3 places in this pamphlet, 1694's amplification is included. In reducing text to ½ the early version, & 1/10 of the 1682 edition the argument has been preserved [Summary Editor's Note: Further summarizing in this summary makes it 1/6 & 1/30 of the originals, respectively]. Quotations are mainly omitted.
The whole emphasis is on conduct as expression of obedience to God. [There is an account of Stephen Grellet, a French refugee who read No Cross, No Crown, language dictionary in hand, twice]. He said: "I had never met with anything of the kind; neither had I felt the Divine witness in me operating so powerfully before." Penn's exhortations still retain their reaching power. Because of his exuberant fluency, [this abridgement was prepared], preserving the essence which has not grown obsolete. As young William Penn wrote in London's Tower: "So shall we be delivered from every snare, no sin shall gain us, no frowns scare us and the Truth shall be more abundantly exalted." ANNA BRINTON
Preface—Reader, I seek thy salvation. A Refiner has come near thee, his grace appeared to thee. His medicine will cure thee; he is as infallible as free; without money & with certainty. What must we do, to be witnesses of his power & love? Christ's Cross is Christ's way to Christ's Crown. That is the following discourse's subject, that thou, mayst be won to [or brought nearer to] Christ. I have tasted Christ's judgments, his mercies, & the world's frowns & reproaches. May God turn my country & the Christian world from envy, hatred, bitterness, ambition & covetousness, for which they fill the earth with trouble & oppression. & in receiving Christ's spirit, may they make triple league against the world, flesh, & devil, mankind's only [true] common enemies. Through self-denial & the cross of Jesus, may they attain God's eternal rest & kingdom. WILLIAM PENN
The Defection of Christendom—Though knowledge and obedience to the Christ's cross doctrine is of infinite moment to men's souls, it is so little understood, so much neglected, and so bitterly contradicted by the [behavior] of professed Christian, that the majority of Christendom miserably deceive and disappoint themselves [as to what] Christianity is. There seems to be very little left of Christianity but the name. They truly worship the god of the world. The false Christians have [for centuries] professed, betrayed, persecuted, and crucified him, by perpetual apostasy from the self-denial of his doctrine; their lives give lie to their faith. The common apprehension—that they may be God's children while disobeying God's commandments—is the most pernicious to their eternal condition. Their mistake about their duty to God is as mischievous as their rebellion against him.
The Remedy—How can Christ be thy Lord when thou dost not obey him? How canst thou be Christ's servant & never serve him? Christ is the world's great spiritual light; it lights everyone coming into the world. He manifests to them their deeds of wickedness & reproves them. Thou, like the inns of old, have been full of other guests. Salvation isn't yet come into thy house. If his light yet shines & reproves thee still, there is hope thy day isn't over, nor is repentance hid from thine eyes. God so blessed the faithful labors of these poor mechanics [the apostles], that thousands of strangers to his spirit's work, were inwardly quickened to the word of life. The ways of their enemies took to destroy increased them. They chose to sustain the afflictions of Christ's true pilgrims rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin.
[Early] Christendom was meek, merciful, self-denying, suffering, & holy. Christendom now is superstitious, persecuting, malicious, lascivious, lying, oppressing. The undoubted reason of degeneracy is thy mind's disregard of Christ's light shining in thee. [Disregard of that light & graces that examines] the most secret thoughts & purposes of thine heart & reproves that which is unfruitful, [leads to] the restless enemy of man's good taking advantage of this slackness. Thy inclinations made his conquest over thee easy. Formality replaced the power of godliness; superstition replaced Christ's institutions; tradition replaced experience; letter replaced life. Worldly pleasures became thy life's study, care & pleasure. Thy condition is worse by thy religion, because thou art temp-ted to think thyself better for it & art not. Thou omitted taking up Christ's holy yoke & bearing thy daily cross.
The Cross/ Self Denial—The Cross mystical is that divine grace and power which crosseth the carnal wills of men, [becoming] the instrument of man's holy dying to the world and being made conformable to the will of God. Where does this cross appear, and where must it be taken up? Because the cross must be where sin is, it must be in the heart and soul. The enemies' temptations are ever directed to the mind; if they take not, the soul sins not; if they are embraced, inordinate desires are presently conceived. The cross is to be daily borne by an inward submission of the soul to the will of God, manifested by Christ's light in the consciences of men.
What is the great work and business of [one who respects the cross]? It is self-denial. What is our cup and cross that we should drink and suffer? They are to do or suffer the will of God for God's service and glory, the true life and obedience of the cross of Jesus. The great Alexanders and mighty Caesars vanguished others, not themselves; Christ conquered self, that ever vanguished the great. Misery and slavery followed all their victories; Christ's brought greater freedom and happiness to those he overcame; they pleased themselves; Christ aimed to please his Father. There is a lawful and an unlawful self; both must be denied.
The lawful self which we are to deny is conveniency, ease, and plenty, the [worldly] blessing and bounty of God [e.g. family, wealth, liberty, and life]. When they are brought in competition with God, they must be denied. Christ had the eternal joy in his eye as recompense. Christ's disciples have the eternal crown of righteousness as reward for their holy neglect, yea, even contempt of the world. There is no room for instruction where lawful self is lord and not servant. For though I have a most powerful persuasion, and clear conviction on my soul of this or that, considering how unmodish it is, what enemies it has, and how strange and singular I shall seem to them, I hope God will pity my weakness. Thus selfish, fearful man. Deliberating is ever the worst, for the soul loses in parlay. Never did God convince people; upon submission, God empowered them. In their in-creases they are not lifted up, nor in their adversities are they cast down,. They are moderated in the one, and comforted in the other, by God's divine presence.
The Unlawful Self—The unlawful self relates to religious worship & to moral and civil conversation in the world. Christ drew off from worship in the outward temple, & instituted a more inward & spiritual cult. In order to serve or have acceptance with God, you must bow to the Spirit's instructions & commands in your souls; [worship God in your souls], encloistered from sin. Christ's cross overcomes the world, & leads a life of purity in the face of its allurements. Christian life's perfection extends to every honest labor used among men. "True Godliness doesn't take men out of the world, but enables them to live better in it & excites their endeavors to mend it ... Christians shouldn't ... meanly steal out of the stern of the world, & leave those in it without a pilot." The inward righteousness of Jesus is [different from] all the contrived devotion of poor superstitious man. The soul awakened & preserved by God's holy power & spirit worships God in God's own spirit. Christ was an ex-ample of true retirement. They are requisite to piety's growth. It is an error not to use monastic lives & to not provide it for the afflicted, tempted, solitary, & devout. Strengthened [by true retirement], they might with more power over their own spirits enter into the world's business again. Divine pleasures are found in a free solitude.
Worship—Not taking up the cross in worship has been a great cause of the troublesome superstition that is yet in the world. True worship can only come from a heart prepared by the Lord, spoken by the Spirit in the soul 's language. Christ taught his disciples to pray [his prayers]. As the disciples then, so we now are not to pray our prayers but those [the inner Christ] enables us to make.
Preparation. How shall a "heart prepared by the Lord" be obtained? Wait patiently, watchfully, and intently upon God. Here, one groan, one sigh from a wounded soul, a heart touched with true remorse, excel and prevails with God over the most composed matter, cast into the aptest phrase. Stand still in thy mind, wait to feel something that is divine to prepare and dispose thee to worship truly, shutting out even what is lawful at another season. Petitions from [the unprepared] are formal and fictitious.
Inward Want/ Purification. Those that [don't recognize] inward wants, that have no fears nor terrors upon them, & feel no need of God's power, [don't know, want, or desire] what they pray for. [Their prayers for God's will grace, & spirit are hypocritical]. How can worship instituted by Christ include those unprepared for worship, those who daily have unclean thoughts, words, & deeds? The unclean can't acceptably worship the holy. The soul must be touched, raised in heavenly desires by heavenly spirit; true worship is in God's presence.
Baptism/ Faith. Christ expressly charged his disciples they should wait until they had received the Holy Ghost's baptism as preparation for the Gospel's preaching. If so much waiting and spiritual preparation was needed for preaching, some at least may be needful to fit us to speak to God. We should learn whether [our trials] are not sent as a blessing. How to pray is still of greater moment than [actual praying]. 'Tis faith that animates prayer and presses it home. With one grain of it, more is done and received, than by all the running, willings, and toilings of man. No one can pray to purpose without faith. It is a holy resignation to God and confidence in God, which gives sure evidence to the soul of things not seen, and a sense of those things hoped for.
Pride: Knowledge—Pride is an excess of self-love, an undervaluing of others, and seeking dominion over them. [Pride is displayed] in: inordinate pursuit of knowledge; seeking and craving after power, and others showing one respect and deference; worldly furniture and ornaments. In pursuit of knowledge, Adam would needs be wiser than God made him, indeed as wise as God. They exchanged innocency for guilt. He who tempted them furnished them with vain knowledge, harmful wisdom, the skill of lies, evasions, and excuses; they lost their plainness and sincerity. When thou doest the thing thou ought not do, thou shalt no more enjoy the comfort of God's peaceful spirit, God's love, or the evidence of a good conscience.
Fallen Adam's knowledge of God stood no more in a daily experience [& refreshment] of the love & work of God in one's soul, but in a notion of what one once did know & experience. The religion of apostate Christians [today is based on] what they once knew [personally] of God's work, which they revolted from, or in a historical belief & an imaginary conception of the experience & prophecies of God's holy men & women. The knowledge of degenerated & unmortified men is impure, unpeaceable, cross, perverse & persecuting, jealous, & abusing of those who are better than them. The false prophets were ever sure to persecute the true ones as false.
[So too with those whose] hypocrisy Christ cried out against. They sought honor from men, [& wouldn't have Christ] "take away our credit with the people." Christ came to level their honor, to bring people to that in-ward knowledge of God. Worldly wisdom was a hindrance to the true knowledge of God. [Apostates] seemed addicted to an adoration of his name, yet they are so far from Christianity's inward power & life that their respect was mainly formal & ceremonious. Love, meekness & self-denial was lost [as they] perplexed the church with dubious questions, drawing people into parties [& spilling blood], as if they had been the worse for being once Christians. [And in all their bloody striving to convert] the people aren't converted but further debased by their efforts. O, those who seek the narrow way. Thou mustn't look to thy tempter, but at thy preserver; retire to thy solitudes; be chaste pilgrims in this evil world; thus thou wilt arrive to knowledge of God & Christ.
Power/ Respect. Pride does extremely crave power; [obviously], nothing has proved more troublesome and destructive to mankind. No matter who, nor how many, are slain, made widows and orphans, or lose their estates and livelihoods, what towns, cities, countries are ruined, if by all these things the ambitious can but arrive at their ends. Ambition 'tis too natural to every private breast to strain for power. We daily see how much men labor their utmost wit and interest to be great. People profess Christianity but they follow the world. Great is their peace who are not careful to be great but, being great, are humble, and do good. Such keep their wits with their consciences, and with an even mind can at all times measure the uneven world.
The world's practice, even now, will tell us that not striking a flag & not saluting certain ports—yea less things— give rise to mighty wars between states, to the expense of much treasure & blood. [In personal terms, is taking offense & taking to arms & combat because a civil hat salute was not returned worth one man's life, considering the importance of the man's life to God, himself, & society? If our religious society is mistaken in declining some popular worldly customs of respect, rather pity & inform, than despise & abuse, our simplicity.
In the fear and presence of the all-seeing just God, the world's present honors and respect became burdensome to us. We saw that they came from an ill root and only delighted a vain and ill mind, and that much pride and folly were in them. Nothing is small that God makes a matter of conscience. [And so] we only passively let fall the practice of what is vain and unchristian. [God presents God's gifts] with very different appearances to the world's settled customs, thereby contradicting human invention. If the test of the rough and homely outside of truth doesn't keep their minds from the reception of it [and its inner beauty], it makes a great discovery upon them. The truth teaches us to despise the false reputations of the world, ... and to overcome their injuries and reproaches. It weans thee off thy familiars, ... & lists thee of the blessed company of the mocked persecuted Jesus.
Honor, esteem, & regard thou owest to all, & if to all, then thy inferior. How & why do we show honor to all? They are God's creations, so be natural, & assist them with what thou canst [& pay them real respect]. Christians show respect, but the difference lies in the nature of their respect. The Christian's motive is the sense of ones duty in God's sight to parents, magistrates, inferior relations, & then to all people, according to their virtue, wisdom, & piety. Let Christians examine what of them & about them agrees with Christ's doctrine & life.
Thou for You/ Rank and Beauty—"Thou" looked too lean and thin a respect to proud emperors, who would have a style suitable to their own ambition; we cannot build our practice on that. In things reasonable or indifferent custom is obliging or harmless, yet in things unreasonable or unlawful she has no authority. To use the same word for one or many, only to please a proud, haughty humor, is not reasonable in our sense. It isn't only "Thou" or title we boggle at, but the esteem and value the vain minds of men do put upon them, that constrains us to steadily testify against them. The certain sense I had from the Lord of their contrariety to the meek and self-denying life of holy Jesus required my disuse of them and testimony against them.
Pride stops not there. She excites people to an excessive value & care of: great & punctual attendance; stately furniture; rich, exact apparel; pretenses to blood or beauty. Nothing of man's folly has less show of reason to disguise folly than [the quest for noble blood]. Wealth & titles fills no man's head with brains, nor heart with truth. If great men's hearts be equal to their abilities to do good, they are blessings to the people of any country. If there be any advantage in [noble descent], 'tis not from blood, but education, which has a mighty influence & strong bias upon affections & actions of men. Pride leads [common] folk to a fond value of their person, especially if they have pretense to shape or beauty. It would abate their folly [if they spent half the time to think of God which they spend in washing, perfuming, painting, & dressing. The pride of one might comfortably supply the need of 10. This sort of pride has been fatal to the sobriety, virtue, peace, & health of families in this kingdom.
Human Relations/ Wealth—Pride destroys relationships; love becomes fear, makes the wife a servant, & the children & servants slaves. The proud man is an ill neighbor; he is an enemy to hospitality, because he would show none, nor be thought to need it. He values others for service only. Pride is more dangerous in greatness; private ambition becomes tyranny in great men. Proud great men leave their real interest to follow an [obsessive idea], & are almost ever destroyed by it. Pride is intolerable in "men of religion," since religion rebukes it.
Avarice isn't observeable or obnoxious to the law as other vices are, so there is more danger for want of that check. Most people strive for wealth not substance. Liberal spending of money, though sinful, 'tis more commendable than love of money for money's sake, one of the basest passions man's mind can be captivated by. People should [start a continuous] examination of how far this temptation hath entered them, because its [progress] into the mind is almost insensible. Wealth tends to corruption, & the reason why some have too little, & [have to work too hard], is because the rich hold hard, to be richer & covet more. Covetousness has caused family feuds, betrayal of friendships, & losing the ability to love better things. The covetous man is an enemy to the state, for he spirits their money away; a disease to the body politic, for he obstructs the circulation of the blood; [the law ought to purge him]. [The rich will receive no consolation in heaven], unless they are willing to become poor men, can resign all, live loose to the world, have it at arm's end, yea, underfoot, a servant, and not a master.
Luxury—Luxury is a disease as epidemical as killing, it creeps into all stations & ranks of men, the poorest often exceeding their ability to indulge their appetite, & the rich frequently wallowing in [what] pleases the eyes & flesh. Luxuries belong not to Jesus' & his true disciples' holy path. Those living lavishly forget the giver, abuse the gift, lose tenderness, forget duty, and be overcome with voluptuousness. For Adam and Eve, the best recreations were to serve God, be just, follow vocations, mind flocks, do good, exercise [so as to promote] gravity, temperance, and virtue. What expense of precious time is [wasted] on things that perish?
Numerous fashions & recreations are the invention of vain, idle minds, or the way indigent, impoverished wits, have chosen to earn their living. They ought to be detested as diverting from more lawful, serviceable, & necessary employments. [No such recreation & frivolity is to be found in the lives of the inspirational figures in the Bible]. To anyone concerned with those whose livelihoods depend on such fashions & recreations: If you & they have made wickedness your pleasure & your profit, be ye content that it should be your grief & punishment.
If the landlords had less lusts to satisfy, the tenants might have less rent to pay, and turn from poor to rich. The burden is heavier on the laborious country that so many hands and shoulders of lust-caterers of the cities should be wanting to the plough and the useful husbandry. Let vanity-hucksters retreat and spend it more honestly than they have got it; & such as really are poor be rather helped to better callings. We must testify against such extravagant vanity. What God hath made is good, but in the whole catalogue the scriptures give, I never found the attires, recreations & way of living, so much in request with the called Christians of these times. God created man a holy, wise, sober, grave, and reasonable creature, fit to himself and the world.
The Public Good—Every one should be so wise as to deny oneself the use of any indifferent enjoyments that might be an encouragement to ones neighbor's folly. It is incumbent on all to only make what is necessary to life and godliness, and to employ their freedom with most advantage to the neighbors. Then that plain-hearted, downright, harmless life would be restored of not much caring what we eat, drink, or put on. It is the interest of good government to curb and rebuke excesses; it prevents many mischiefs. It keeps out foreign vanities and improves our own commodities. That the cart, plow, and thrash should be laid upon 19 parts of the land to feed the inordinate lusts and appetites of the 20th, is so far from the appointment of the God of the spirits of all flesh, that it is a wretched and blasphemous injustice. God made [us] stewards to each other's exigencies and relief.
If the money which is expended in every parish in vain fashions could be collected in a public stock, [there would be help for broken tenants, those able to work, beggars, the aged and impotent. The exchequer's emergency needs might be supplied by such a bank. Jesus' self-denying religion, his life and doctrine are a perpetual reproach to most Christians. He was humble, they proud; he forgiving, they revengeful; he meek, they fierce; he plain, they gaudy; he a pilgrim on earth, they citizens of the world.
Oh Lord God I pray thee, make an end of sin, & finish transgression, & bring in the everlasting righteousness to the souls of all, that thy poor creation may be delivered from bondage, and the earth enjoy her sabbath again, that thy great name may be lifted up in all nations, and thy salvation renowned to the ends of the world.
http://www.pendlehill.org/product-category/pamphlets
www.facebook.com/pendlehill?fref=ts
204. William Penn, 17th century founding father: selections from political writings (ed. Edwin Bronner;
1975)
About the Editor—Edwin Bronner is Librarian, Curator of the Quaker Collection, & Professor of History at Haverford College, a former member of Pendle Hill’s board of directors & has served as Chairman of the Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC) since January 1974. His special knowledge of the great Founder of Pennsylvania concerns us here. He is currently working on a list of Penn’s printed works. The pre-sent pamphlet contains a biographical introduction, selection from the Founder’s political writings, & comments.
Introduction: Penn’s Life and Achievements—William Penn is honored as one of the founders of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, & Delaware. He was active a century before our nation's beginnings. He offered a plan for the colonies’ union 60 years before Ben Franklin. He wrote An Essay Towards the Present & Future Peace of Europe; his ideas on education, prisons, race relations, city planning, & the nature world were ahead of his time.
Having been imprisoned, he made a special effort to provide justice for those accused of crimes. He reduced the list of 200 capital offenses to 2. The most familiar image of Penn is him making a treaty with the Lenni Lenape Indians, paying a fair price & providing for equal justice before the law. In Pennsylvania, he made provision for schools that taught reading, writing, & a trade. He advocated acting according to nature. He created Philadelphia as a planned city, and urged settlers to build their houses on relatively large plots of land with large gardens.
William Penn was born in London in 1644, during the Civil War; Penn’s father was a prominent figure on the Parliament side. He changed his allegiance to the exiled King. A close relationship between the royal family & the Penns continued for the next half-century. He was tutored privately & entered Oxford at 16. Expelled from Christ Church for his religious beliefs, he spent 2 years on the Continent, studied law at Lincoln’s Inn, & went back to Ireland to supervise his father’s estates. He made the decision to embrace the Quaker movement in 1667.
As a despised Quaker, Penn was persecuted and imprisoned in an era when religious tolerance was unknown. Because he studied law, Penn was chosen to attempt to settle a dispute over control of West New Jersey. He defended the fundamental rights of Englishmen, and insisted on proper elected representation.
In 1681, the Crown granted him the province known as Pennsylvania, as a means of settling the King’s debt to the Penn estate. He arrived in Delaware Bay in the ship Welcome in late October 1682. [He spent 2 years getting Pennsylvania off to a progressive, tolerant, & prosperous start]. He spent 15 years in England, was imprisoned a short time & returned to Pennsylvania for 2 years. Penn married, 1st Guliema Springett (1672), & then Hannah Callowhill (1696). In 1712 William Penn suffered several strokes, & was very limited his last 6 years.
The People’s Ancient and Just Liberties—Liberty of conscience was one of the most important issues for which Penn fought as a Quaker. At 26 Penn became involved in a court trial which vividly dramatized religious and civil liberties. He was arrested for preaching in the street after being locked out of the meeting-house. The transcript of his trial was hawked on the streets as a bestseller.
[This selection will be limited to Penn’s word’s, with the responses paraphrased] “We believe it to be our duty . . . no power on earth shall be able to divert us from reverencing and adoring our God. [You are here for breaking the law] I affirm that I have broken no law. I desire to know by what law you prosecute me & on what law you ground my indictment. [Common law] If it is common, it should not be hard to produce.
[Plead to the indictment] Shall I plead to an indictment that hath no foundation in law? Unless you show me the law, I shall take it for granted your proceedings are merely arbitrary. [Are you guilty] The question is whether this indictment be legal. [I can’t explain it briefly] If common law be so hard to understand, it’s far from common. [You will not be permitted to go on] I have asked but one question, and you have not answered me, though the rights and privilege of every Englishmen be concerned in it. [We will not hear you talk all night] If you deny me evidence of the law I have broken, you show the world your resolution to sacrifice the rights of Englishmen to your sinister and arbitrary designs. [Take him away] Is this justice or true judgment? If these ancient fundamental laws are not maintained and observed, who can say he hath right to the coat on his back?” The Lord of heaven and earth will be judge between us in this matter.”
Preface to the First Frame of Government—The preface to the 1st constitution for Pennsylvania reflects Penn’s philosophy about the nature of government. Penn places his faith in “men of wisdom and virtue.”
[When God chose man to rule the world], He qualified man with integrity to use it justly. The precept of divine love & truth in his own bosom was guide & keeper of his innocency; lust made a lamentable breach upon it. Whosoever resisteth the powers that be resisteth God's power. [Government’s 2 ends] are to terrify evil-doers, & cherish the good. This makes the government as durable in the world as good men shall be; government seems to me part of religion, a thing sacred in its institution & end. They weakly err that think there is no other use for government than correction; that is the coarsest part of it. Government, like clocks, go from the motion men give them. Let men be good & the government can’t be bad. Good men never want good laws nor suffer ill ones.
Plan for a Union of the Colonies—Penn’s proposal to bring the English closer together under a royal commissioner and a continental congress was 1st made to the Board of Trade in 1696.
1 & 2. That Boston, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, the New Jerseys, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, & Carolina may each appoint 2 persons to meet once a year or oftener to debate & resolve measures for the public tranquility & safety [of the 10 colonies].
3-5. The King’s High Commissioner shall most likely be the Governor of New York, have the chair and preside in the said Congress, most likely meeting in New York as the most central colony.
6. Their business shall be to hear & adjust matters of debt, justice, commerce, & defense of the provinces.
7. In times of war the King’s High Commissioner shall be chief commander of the [provinces’ militia].
Essay Toward the Peace of Europe—Written by Penn in the period he withdrew from public life, it appeared 1st in 1693. Penn gave credit to Henry IV of France for many of the ideas advanced. The Sultan of Turkey & Czar of Russia were included in union. This document has been quoted more fully than others here.
I have undertaken a subject that requires one of more sufficiency than I am master of to treat it as in truth it deserves. It is the fruit of many solicitous thoughts for the peace of Europe. Let them censure my management, so they prosecute the advantage of the design. SECTION I—It becomes prudent men to consider the vast charge that has accompanied the blood in [Europe], and which makes no mean part of these tragedies, and to deliberate upon the uncertainty of war.
SECTION II—As justice is a preserver, so it is a better procurer of peace than war. If we look over the stories of all times, we shall find the aggressors generally moved by ambition, the pride of conquest and greatness of dominion more than right. The aggressors seldom get what they seek, or perform what they promise. Embassies [can] hear the pleas and memorials of justice [from] the wronged party. That which prevents a civil war is that which may prevent a war abroad [i.e. justice]. Peace is maintained by justice, which is a fruit of government, as government is from society, and society from consent.
SECTION III—Government is an expedient against confusion, a restraint upon all disorder; just weights and an even balance, that one man may not injure another nor himself by intemperance. It is certain the most natural and human [government] is consent, for that binds freely, when men hold their liberty by their true obedience to rules of their own making. But so depraved is human nature, that too many would not readily be brought to do what they know is right, or avoid what they are satisfied they should not do.
SECTION IV—If the sovereign princes of Europe would [have] their deputies meet [periodically], & there establish rules of justice [they would] observe one to another. [Differences not solved by private embassies] should be brought before this sovereign assembly. If any sovereignty should seek remedy by arms or delay [too long] their compliance, all other sovereignties, shall compel submission and performance of the sentence.
SECTION V—There appears to me 3 things upon which peace is broken: acting to keep; acting to recover; acting to add. The 1st 2 may find justice in that sovereign court. The last will find no room in the imperial states.
SECTION VI—[The title of sovereign states] is either by long and undoubted succession, by election, by marriage, by purchase, or by conquest. The world knows the date of the length of empires of conquest; they expire with the power of the possessor to defend them. When conquest has been confirmed by a treaty, being engrafted, it is fed by that which is the security of better titles, consent.
SECTION VII—[There is the] difficulty of what votes to allow [because of] the inequality of the princes and states. The least inclination to the peace of Europe will not stand or halt at this objection. [My estimation is that] Germany will send 12; France, Spain, Turkey, Russia, 10 each; France, 8; England 6; Sweden, Poland, Netherlands 4 each; Portugal, Denmark, Venice, 3 each; Switzerland 2; Holstein and Courland 1 each. The fuller the assembly of states is, the more solemn, effectual, and free the debates will be.
SECTION VIII—If the whole number be cast into tens each choosing one, they preside by turns, to whom all speeches should be addressed, and who should collect the sense of debates and state the question for a vote by ballot. It seems to me that nothing in this imperial parliament should pass but by ¾ of the whole. If there were a clerk for each ten, one out of each ten were appointed to examine and compare the journals of those clerks and then lock them up. I should think it necessary that every sovereignty should be present under great penalties, and that none leave the session without leave till all be finished. The language must be in Latin or French.
SECTION IX—[As to the strongest and richest opposing this arrangement], he is not stronger than all the rest, so you should point this out and compel him into it. If men of sense and honor are chosen, they will either scorn the baseness or pay for the knavery. There can be no danger of effeminacy from disuse of soldiery; each sovereignty may introduce as temperate or severe a discipline in the education of youth as they please.
The knowledge of government in general, the particular constitutions of Europe, and above all, of his own country are very recommending accomplishments. This fits him for the parliament at home and courts abroad. [The keeping of] a small force in every other sovereignty will prevent one from building up a formidable body of troops with which to surprise their neighbor. As to the want of employment in soldiery for younger brothers of families, education [and peace will produce] more merchants and husbandmen [which will produce more jobs.] [With such a body overseeing Europe], the sovereign princes will be as sovereign at home as they ever were. If this be called a lessening of their power, it must be only because great fish can no longer eat up little ones.
SECTION X—It will not be the least benefit that it prevents the spilling of so much human and Christian blood. The cries of many widows, parents, and fatherless are prevented. The reputation of Christianity will be in some degree recovered. This proposal saves the great expense [of armies] and the expense of frequent and splendid embassies. The towns, cities, and countries that might be laid waste by the rage of war are thereby preserved, [the blessings of which the history of each country will no doubt confirm].
There will be an ease and security of travel and traffic, a happiness never understood since the Roman Empire. No Christian monarch will adventure to oppose or break such a union. The treason, blood and devastation that war has cost in Christendom for these last two ages must add to the credit of our proposal and the blessing of peace thereby humbly recommended. The final advantage is that it will beget and increase personal friendship between princes and states, [which will plant] peace in a deep and fruitful soil. [On a personal note, princes would be free to] choose wives for themselves, such as they love, and not by proxy merely to gratify interest, an ignoble motive that rarely begets or continues that kindness which ought to be between men and their wives. [Loving parents] have kind and generous influence upon their offspring.
By the same rules of justice & prudence that parents, magistrates, estates, & princes govern, Europe may obtain & preserve peace among her sovereignties. It will not be hard to conceive or frame, or execute the design I have here proposed. Something of the nature of our expedient was to the wisdom, justice, and valor of Henry IV of France. I have very little to deserve, for this great king’s example tells us it is fit to be done. My share is only thinking of it at this juncture, and putting it into the common light for the peace and prosperity of Europe.
http://www.pendlehill.org/product-category/pamphlets
www.facebook.com/pendlehill?fref=ts
28. Barclay in Brief (edited by Eleanore Price Mather; 1945)
PREFACE—This abbreviation of [Robert Barclay’s] greatest work, Apology, is timely. It offers modern Quakers an opportunity to become acquainted with a book of great historical importance. Barclay’s conception of the Christian religion’s nature & function comes to the fore. Barclay’s achievement lies in his extraordinary synthesis of the mystical (inward experience) & evangelical (outward history). Calvinism created an unbridgeable chasm between human & divine; modern liberalism as blurred it so that religion has lost its power. If man enters the holy of holies only to find himself there he will not come again. Religion now must lay hold onto the belief that man’s can win through that of God in the soul. [That is Barclay’s religion]. Howard Brinton.
INTRODUCTION: R.B. unto the Friendly Reader Wisheth Salvation—It was left to Robert Barclay to round Quaker beliefs into a religious system and present them as such to the world [in the Apology]. He inherited a talent for theological disputation peculiar to the Scottish people. He came in contact with the Roman Catholic faith, & at 18 joined the society of Friends like his father David before him. Besides putting into scholarly terms the new faith, he used his legal knowledge to aid fellow members who were hailed before magistrates.
[He was imprisoned himself], though he could have easily obtained release through his relation’s with the royal court and certain rulers on the Continent. Barclay never came in person to the New World. He [received] “a charge from God” [and so] married Christian Molleson, a Quakeress of Aberdeen; they had 7 children. He died in 1690 at the age of 41. He was a lover of peace, but never hesitant to take up the weapons of spiritual warfare. The Apology is the supreme declaration of Quaker belief, organized and set forth by a man who remained Quakerism’s only theologian up to the 19th century.
Today, scarcely a Quaker under 30 has read it. We have prepared this condensation [in the hope it] will appeal to minds trained to the brevity of modern journalism; [who will hopefully] obtain the essence of a timeless spiritual truth. We find his use of the term “natural man” hard to understand; for him it meant sinful man. We are inheritors of Rousseau’s belief in the natural goodness of man. The plain truth is that it is useless to say, “Lets’s be primitive”; humankind has long since passed from the Garden Innocence.
Barclay knew that man was a very complex animal. He has become self-conscious. And the only way by which he can be free of [the lonely, fearful, longing] self, is to lose it in the Spirit which is so vastly greater than he, to yield it up to the divine will. Afterwards will come the resurrection of the soul, a rising of the new man or creature which Barclay calls the “Christ within.” If man remains “natural” his course is necessarily evil and he will perish in sin. With Barclay the term “natural” means sinful only when applied to the man who, after his eyes are opened, is content to remain a mere rational animal indifferent to the light of the Spirit; more is expected of him. Where goodness is there is God, for good works are the inevitable fruition of a growing spirit.
[The theology of Barclay’s age] seems to the modern mind to have placed more emphasis on man’s fall than on Christ’s raising him up again. The Quaker faith in man’s potential goodness was revolutionary heresy to the 17th century Puritan clergy. Barclay regarded [pessimistic] predestination as a hideous blasphemy against the mercy of God. Barclay balanced the Seed of Sin with a Seed of Light. [He protests against Charles II’s licentious court, the extravagant dress, the flattering of the King by addressing him with the plural “you,” rather than the singular “thou,” which filtered down through England’s upper class.
If 17th century testimonies are outmoded, the spirit behind them are not. Pacificism is as vital an issue today as it was then. Barclay’s goal was a way of living where we may remain in [“the world”] yet maintain a life of the spirit ordinarily possible only in the cloister. Barclay challenges both Calvinism and the fashionable World. The Society of Friends sat in communal silence, led only by the Spirit. [Barclay objected to the human will present in the pre-arranged order of service and the division of worshipers between laity and clergy. [He had nothing but contempt for the clergy’s theological hair-splitting]. [He said:] “I judge the Christian religion to be so far from being bettered [by them], that it is rather destroyed.”
On the whole the space allotted to each major point is proportionate with its treatment in the Apology; more space has been given to the peace testimony because of its extreme pertinence today. Barclay said: “What I have heard with the ears of my soul, & seen with my inward eyes, & my hands of handled of the Word of Life, & what hath been inwardly manifested to me of the things of God, that do I declare.” Eleanor Price Mather
BARCLAY IN BRIEF
I. BELIEF: Immediate Revelation—The understanding of the true knowledge of God is that which is most necessary to be known & believed in the first place. The certain, spiritual, saving heart-knowledge of God may be obtained only by inward immediate manifestation and revelation of God’s spirit. This truth hath been acknowledged by by professors of Christianity in all ages. The true seed in them hath been answered by God’s love. They find a distaste and disgust in all outward means. The apostle [Paul] uses the comparison that as the things of a man are only known to the spirit of man, so the things of God are only known by the Spirit of God.
Knowledge of Christ which isn't by the revelation of his own Spirit in the heart, [i.e. gathered from the words or writings of spiritual men] isn't properly the knowledge of Christ. The natural man of the largest capacity [using only] the best words, even scripture words, can't understand the mysteries of God’s kingdom as well as the least & weakest child who tasteth them by having them revealed inwardly by the Spirit. The Scriptures do declare that God’s converse with man was by the immediate manifestation of his Spirit. Christians now are to be led inwardly & immediately by the Spirit of God as the saints were of old, as it is positively asserted in scripture.
He [who says he is] ignorant of the inwardness of the Spirit of Christ, acknowledges himself to be in the carnal mind, which is enmity to God. Whatever he may know or believe of Christ, he has not [become] a Christian. Whatsoever is noble, worthy, desirable in the Christian faith, is ascribed to this Spirit. [Christianity] could no more subsist than the outward world without the sun. If any depart from this certain guide, it will not follow that the true guidance of the Spirit is uncertain [because it is rejected by] the weakness or wickedness of men. Divine inward revelations are not to be subjected to the test, either of the outward testimony of the scriptures or the natural reason of man; it is self-evident and clear, forcing the well-disposed understanding to assent.
The Scriptures—From these revelations of the Spirit of God to the saints have proceeded the Scriptures of Truth. [They declare the inward testimony of the Spirit primary & themselves secondary]. I myself have known friends [who are full of] divine knowledge of his truth, who were ignorant of the Greek & Hebrew & could not read their own language. They disagreed with an English translation that did not fit the manifestation of the truth in their own hearts, boldly affirming the Spirit of God never said so. [It turned out they were right]. [Translators will strain passages] to express their own opinion & notion of truth. God sometimes conveys comfort & consolation to us through his children, whom he raises up & inspires to speak or write a word in season. Mutual emanation of the heavenly life tends to quicken the mind, when at any time it is overtaken with heaviness. Seeing the snares the saints were liable to, & beholding their deliverance. We may thereby be made wise unto salvation.
The Condition of Man in the Fall—We confess that a seed of sin is transmitted to all from Adam. [Man is not automatically sinful, but by sinning they join with the seed]. It is called death in the scripture, and the body of death; it is a death to the life of righteousness and holiness. Scripture makes no mention of original sin, [which is an] invented and unscriptural barbarism. Many heathen philosophers [e.g. Plato, Pythagoras, Plotinus and others,] were sensible of the loss received by Adam, though they knew not the outward history. [They used images of dark caves, wandering, dead coals, clipped wings]. We ascribe to paradise a mystical signification and truly account it as that spiritual communion and fellow ship which the saints obtain with God by Jesus Christ.
Universal and Saving Light—The knowledge [of salvation] has been manifested to us by the revelation of Jesus Christ in us, the testimony of the Spirit in our hearts. The Light is not less universal than the seed of sin. Hence Justin Martyr stuck not to call Socrates a Christian, saying that all such as lived according to the divine word in them, were Christians, such as Socrates, Heraclitus and others. Some in those remote parts of the world where the knowledge of the history is wanting, may be made partakers of the divine mystery, if they suffer his seed and light. Light communion with the Father and the Son [may turn wicked men] from the evil to the good.
This is Christ within, which we are heard so much to speak of. We have said how that a divine, spiritual, & supernatural light is in all. As it is received, Christ comes to be formed & brought forth. We are far from saying said that Christ is formed in all men. Neither is Christ in all men by way of union. Christ is in all men like a seed. Christ lies crucified in them by their sins. As they look upon him & repent, he may come to be raised, & have dominion in their hearts. This seed in the hearts of all is the kingdom of God. As the whole body of a great tree is wrapped up in the seed of the tree, even so the kingdom of Christ is in every man’s & woman’s heart.
The grace and light strives and wrestles with all in order to save all; he that resists its striving, is the cause of his own condemnation; he that resists it not, it becomes his salvation. He that made us without us, will not save us without us. Man’s heart, as it resist or retires from the grace of God returns to its former condition again.
Reason—This light of which we speak is distinct & of a different nature from man’s soul. Man may apprehend in his brain a knowledge of God & the spiritual; yet it cannot profit him towards salvation, but rather hindereth. Every such man has set up Anti-Christ in himself, & sitteth in the temple of God as God. We look upon reason as fit to order & rule man in things natural. As the moon borrows her light from the sun, so ought men, if they would be rightly ordered in natural things, to have their reason enlightened by this divine & pure light.
Conscience—It is that knowledge in a man’s heart, arising from what agreeth or contradicteth anything believed by him. The Light as it is received, removes blindness of judgment, opens understanding, & rectifies both the judgment & the conscience. We continually commend men to the Light of Christ in the conscience.
Justification by Faith and Works—As many receive the light, it becomes in them a holy, pure, & spiritual birth. Since good works as naturally follow from this birth as heat from fire therefore are they of absolute necessity to justification. Works of the law are preformed in man’s own will, in conformity to the outward law & letter; works of grace or gospel are wrought in conformity to the inward and spiritual law by the power and Spirit of Christ in us, pure and perfect in their kind. Faith that worketh by love cannot be without works.
Perfection—How far may Christ prevail in us while we are in this life? How far may we prevail over our soul’s enemies, in & by Christ strength? We understand perfection as permitting growth, a perfection proportionable & answerable to man’s measure. Those who attain a measure of perfection may still fall into iniquity, & lose it. Though every sin weakens a man's spiritual condition, it doth not so as to destroy him altogether, or render him uncapable of rising again. Turn thy mind to light & Christ's spiritual law in the heart, so that this world's life may die & a new life be raised, lived henceforth to & for God. Then thou wilt be a Christian indeed.
II. WORSHIP: The Church—The Church as it is used in the holy scripture, signifies an assembly or gathering of many to 1 place; this is the real & proper signification of church. God hath called them out of the world & worldly spirit, to walk in Light & Life. [This church includes] whatsoever nation, kindred, tongue, or people as become obedient to God's holy light & testimony in their hearts. [This catholic church includes] Turks, Jews, even Christians blinded in some things in their understanding, or burdened with superstitions & formality.
Group Worship—All true, acceptable worship to God is offered in the inward & immediate moving & drawing of his own [limitless] Spirit. All other worship is superstition, will-worship, & abominable idolatry in God’s sight. To meet together we think necessary for God’s people; there is a need for joint & visible fellowship. In their spirits the secret power & virtue of life refreshes the soul. Some meetings pass without a word; & yet our souls have been greatly edified & refreshed, our hearts overcome with the secret sense of God’s power & Spirit.
When I came into silent assemblies of God’s people, I felt a secret power among them. I felt evil weakening in me & good raised up; I became knit & united unto them. Our worship consisteth of holy dependence of mind upon God. There is scarce any in whom God [doesn't raise up one] to minister to his brethren. We judge it needful there be in the 1st place a time of silence, during which every one may be gathered inward to the word & gift of grace. Waiting upon God must be exercised in man’s denying self, both inwardly & outwardly, abstracting from all the workings, imaginations, & speculations of his own mind. The little seed of righteousness which God hath planted in his soul receives a place to arise, & becometh a holy birth in man. By waiting there he comes to be accepted in God’s sight, to stand in his presence, hear his voice, & observe his holy Spirit’s motions.
When many are gathered together into the same life there is more of the glory of God. The good seed, as it ariseth, will be found to work as physick in the soul. When the light breaks through the darkness, there will be such a painful travail found in the soul, that will even work upon the outward man, and the body will be greatly shaken. And from this the name of Quakers was 1st reproachfully cast upon us; we are not ashamed of it. The great advantage of this true worship of God is that it consisteth not in man’s wisdom. The natural mind and will hath no delight to abide in it, because they find no room there for imagination and inventions [or his outward and carnal senses]. This form of worship being observed, is not likely to be long kept pure without the power; there is nothing in it to invite and tempt men to dote upon it, [besides the power].
Ministry—Those that the Spirit set apart for the ministry by its divine power and influence opening their mouths, and giving them to exhort, reprove, and instruct with virtue and power; these are thus ordained by God and admitted into the ministry by the free gift of God [as he seeth meet]. Every true minister of the gospel is ordained, prepared and supplied in the work of the ministry by the light or gift of God. Those who have this authority may and ought to preach the gospel; those who want [lack] the authority of this divine gift, however learned, or authorized by men and churches, are to be esteemed as deceivers & not true ministers of the gospel.
All may speak or prophesy by the Spirit; some are more particularly called to the work of ministry & therefore are fitted of the Lord to watch over their brethren. There are also elders, who though they be not moved to a frequent testimony [with a] declaration in words, they watch over & privately admonish the young, take care for widows, poor, & fatherless, [& see that] peace, love, unity, & soundness be preserved in the church of Christ.
We oppose the distinction of laity, and clergy, which in the scripture is not to be found. [These] are educated at schools on purpose to learn the art & trade of preaching, & must see to get a place; then they hath a set hire for a livelihood. The ministers we plead for, having freely received, freely give, and work honestly for bread to themselves and their families. If they be called by God and the work of the Lord hinder them from the use of their trades, take what is freely given them by [those they minister to]; and having food and raiment be content.
[They are sometimes illiterate, but] my heart hath been often greatly broken and tendered by that virtuous life that proceeded from the powerful ministry of those illiterate men, the evil in me often chained down, and the good reached to and raised. Was I not also a lover and admirer of knowledge, and sought after it? It pleased God early to withstand my endeavors, and made me seriously to consider that without holiness and regeneration, no man can see God. Among these excellent, though illiterate witnesses of God, I, with many others, have found the heavenly food that gives contentment. Let my soul seek after this learning, and wait for it forever.
Prayer/Song—Our adversaries agree that the motions & influence of God’s Spirit are not necessary to be previous thereunto, therefore they have set times in publick worship & in private devotion, at which they set about performing their prayers. Prayer is both very profitable, & a necessary duty commanded, but as we can do nothing without Christ, so neither can we pray without concurrence & assistance of his Spirit.
Inward prayer is secret turning of the mind towards God, where it looks up to God, joins with [God’s seed], breathes towards him, & is constantly breathing forth secret desires & aspirations towards him [i.e. “praying continually”] Outward prayer is when the spirit receives strength & liberty to bring forth sighs, groans, or words. Such as are watchful in their minds, & much retired in exercising inward prayer are more capable to use the outward frequently. When many are gathered in watchful mind, God doth frequently pour forth the Spirit of prayer. Outward prayer depends on the inward, so we cannot prefix set times to pray outwardly. The case for singing in worship is the same as for preaching & prayer; it must arise from the Spirit’s direct influence, from what is pure in the heart. [There is] no example of artificial music by organ, instruments, or voice in the NT.
Baptism/Communion—Baptism is the answer of good conscience before God, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Infant baptism is human tradition. That the one baptism isn't a washing of water is from I Peter 3: 21. Many baptized by water aren't saved. [But as to] the Spirit's baptism, none can have a good conscience & not be saved by it. The communion of Christ’s body & blood is inward, spiritual. Even they who received [spiritual] substance used the breaking of the bread in the church for a time, for the weak’s sake. Seeing that they are the shadow of better things, they cease in such as have obtained the substance. We certainly know that the day is dawned, in which God hath arisen, & hath dismissed all ceremonies & rites, & is only to be worshiped in Spirit.
III. TESTIMONIES—Even by the confession of their adversaries, they are found to be free of those abominations which abound among other professors. Our adversaries [insist on doing some things] which we have found to be in no ways lawful unto us, & have been commanded of the Lord to lay them aside. The nature of these things distinguish us, so that we can't hide ourselves from any without proving unfaithful to our testimony.
We do not intend to destroy the relations betwixt prince & people, master & servants, parents & children. We shall evidence that these natural relations are rather better established, than hurt by it. Our principle leaves every man to enjoy peaceably whatever his industry or his parents, have purchased to him. Would it not greatly contribute to Christianity’s commendation, & to the increase of the life & virtue of Christ, if all superfluous titles of honour, profuseness & playing were laid aside & forborne? [In those God has led out of such things], God hath produced mortification and abstraction from the love and cares of this world which was judged could only be obtained by those shut up in cloisters and monasteries.
Titles/ Hat & Knee—It isn't lawful for Christians to give or receive titles [for these reasons]: they are no part of that obedience which is due to magistrates or superiors; the apostles deserved [the titles of Holiness, Excellency, Emininence] better than any now who claim them; Christians are to seek the honor that comes from above, & not the honor that comes from below. [The use of the plural “you” began in Roman times]. It & the other titles of honor seem to have derived from monarchial government; which afterwards by degrees, came to be derived to private persons. This way of speaking proceeds from a high and proud mind. [With the use of the word “you,”] the pride of men placed God & the beggar in the same category. We use the singular equally to all.
Kneeling, bowing, & uncovering of the head is the outward signification of adoration towards God alone; it isn't lawful to give it to man, [for] what [then] is reserved for the Creator. Men being alike in creation, don't owe worship to one another, but all equally are to return it to God. Many of us have been sorely beaten & buffeted, yea, & imprisoned for months because we couldn't so satisfy proud unreasonable humors of proud men.
Apparel/Gaming—We shall not say that all persons are to be clothed alike, because it will perhaps neither suit their bodies nor estates. [For a person of fine clothing], the abstaining from fine clothing may be in him a greater act of mortification than the abstaining from finer clothes in the servant, who was never accustomed to them. What a country produces may be no vanity to the inhabitants to use. The iniquity lies in a lust of vanity which [causes them to] stretch to have things that from their rarity seem precious & so feed their lust the more.
[Gaming interferes with] having fear of the Lord, standing in awe of him, because this fear and awe is forgotten in their gaming. [While the mind may need some] divertisement to recreate the mind, we are not allowed any time to recede from the remembrance [and fear] of God. The relaxation of the mind from the more serious duties, [is such that] even in doing these things the soul carrieth with it that divine influence and spiritual habit, [so that if even the wicked do the same] yet they are done in a different Spirit. Innocent divertisements [include] visiting friends, hearing or reading history, gardening, geometrical and mathematical experiments, and such other things of this nature. In all which things we are not to forget God.
Swearing—It is no ways lawful for Christian to swear, whom Christ has called to his essential truth, which was before all oaths. Neither is it lawful for them to be unfaithful in this, that they may please others, or that they may avoid their hurt. Since Christ would have his disciples attain the highest pitch of perfection, he abrogated oaths, as a rudiment of infirmity and established the use of truth instead.
Fighting—The last thing to be considered, is revenge and war, an evil as opposite and contrary to the Spirit, & doctrine of Christ as light to darkness. Through contempt of Christ’s law the whole world is filled with violence, oppression, murders, ravishing of women, and all manner of cruelty. It is strange that men, made after the image of God, should have so much degenerated, that they rather bear the image and nature of [beasts], than of rational reason, [even] those who profess themselves disciples of our peaceable Lord and master Jesus Christ.
This great prophet [speaks clearly in Matthew 5:38-48]. Truly the words are so clear in themselves, that they need no illustration to explain their sense. [Yet there are those trying to reconcile violence & war with these words]. Whoever can find a means to reconcile these things, may be supposed to have found a way to reconcile God with the devil, Christ with Antichrist, light with darkness, & good with evil. Jesus’ words with respect to revenge command unto [would-be] disciples of Christ, a more perfect, eminent, & full [display] of charity, suffering & patience than was required of them [under] Moses' law. [Early Christian were faithful to these words].
Almost all the modern sects live in the neglect and contempt of this law of Christ, and likewise oppress others who do not agree with them for conscience sake. We have suffered much because we neither could ourselves bear arms, nor send others in our place, nor give our money for military [equipment]. We could not hold our doors, windows and shops closed, [in support of] the arms of the kingdom under which we live. [Those] at war together have implored our God for contradictory, impossible things; both cannot obtain victory.
If the magistrate be truly a Christian, he ought himself to obey the command of his master, & then he couldn't command us to kill them. To obey God is to exalt & perfect nature, to elevate it from the natural to the supernatural life. We deny not the present magistrates altogether the name of Christians, yet we may affirm that they are far from the perfection of the Christian religion. The present confessors of the Christian name aren't yet fitted for [our] form of Christianity, & therefore can't be undefending themselves until they attain perfection.
Liberty of Conscience—That no man hath power over the consciences of men is apparent; it's God's seat & throne in him. We understand by matters of conscience such as immediately relate betwixt God & man, or men & men that are under the same persuasion, as to meet together & worship God. The liberty we lay claim to is liberty & exercise of their conscience towards God & among themselves. Chrysostom said: “We must condemn & reprove the evil doctrines that proceed from Hereticks, but spare the men, & pray for their salvation.”
Of excellent patience & sufferings, God's witness called Quakers have given manifest proof. They went up & down, as they were moved of the Lord, preaching & propagating the truth in marketplaces, highways, streets & publick temples, though daily beaten, whipped, bruised, haled, & imprisoned. They kept their meetings for worship openly, & didn't shut the door, nor do it by stealth, that all might know it, & those who would might enter. When others came to break up a meeting, they were obliged to take every individual out by force, the worshipers not being free to give up liberty at the others’ command. And unless kept out by violence, the worshipers return peaceably to their place. [They even held worship in the rubbish of torn-down meeting houses].
Thus for a Christian man to vindicate his just liberty with so much boldness will in due time purchase peace. They greatly sin against this rule that in time of persecution do not profess their own way so much as they would if it were otherwise. Yet, when they get the magistrate on their side, they seek to establish their liberty by denying it to others. Our malicious enemies say that if we had the power, we would [likewise coerce and persecute others]; they only judge others by themselves. If ever we prove guilty of persecution, let us be judged the greatest of hypocrites, and let not any spare to persecute us. Amen, saith my soul.
CONCLUSION—If thou consider this system of religion here delivered, with its consistence and harmony, as well in itself as with the scriptures of truth, I doubt not but thou wilt say with me that this is the spiritual day of Christ’s appearance. As God hath prospered us, notwithstanding much opposition, so will he yet do, that neither the art, wisdom, nor violence of men or devils shall be able to quench that little spark that hath appeared.
http://www.pendlehill.org/product-category/pamphlets
www.facebook.com/pendlehill?fref=ts
http://www.pendlehill.org/product-category/pamphlets
www.facebook.com/pendlehill?fref=ts
PREFACE—This abbreviation of [Robert Barclay’s] greatest work, Apology, is timely. It offers modern Quakers an opportunity to become acquainted with a book of great historical importance. Barclay’s conception of the Christian religion’s nature & function comes to the fore. Barclay’s achievement lies in his extraordinary synthesis of the mystical (inward experience) & evangelical (outward history). Calvinism created an unbridgeable chasm between human & divine; modern liberalism as blurred it so that religion has lost its power. If man enters the holy of holies only to find himself there he will not come again. Religion now must lay hold onto the belief that man’s can win through that of God in the soul. [That is Barclay’s religion]. Howard Brinton.
INTRODUCTION: R.B. unto the Friendly Reader Wisheth Salvation—It was left to Robert Barclay to round Quaker beliefs into a religious system and present them as such to the world [in the Apology]. He inherited a talent for theological disputation peculiar to the Scottish people. He came in contact with the Roman Catholic faith, & at 18 joined the society of Friends like his father David before him. Besides putting into scholarly terms the new faith, he used his legal knowledge to aid fellow members who were hailed before magistrates.
[He was imprisoned himself], though he could have easily obtained release through his relation’s with the royal court and certain rulers on the Continent. Barclay never came in person to the New World. He [received] “a charge from God” [and so] married Christian Molleson, a Quakeress of Aberdeen; they had 7 children. He died in 1690 at the age of 41. He was a lover of peace, but never hesitant to take up the weapons of spiritual warfare. The Apology is the supreme declaration of Quaker belief, organized and set forth by a man who remained Quakerism’s only theologian up to the 19th century.
Today, scarcely a Quaker under 30 has read it. We have prepared this condensation [in the hope it] will appeal to minds trained to the brevity of modern journalism; [who will hopefully] obtain the essence of a timeless spiritual truth. We find his use of the term “natural man” hard to understand; for him it meant sinful man. We are inheritors of Rousseau’s belief in the natural goodness of man. The plain truth is that it is useless to say, “Lets’s be primitive”; humankind has long since passed from the Garden Innocence.
Barclay knew that man was a very complex animal. He has become self-conscious. And the only way by which he can be free of [the lonely, fearful, longing] self, is to lose it in the Spirit which is so vastly greater than he, to yield it up to the divine will. Afterwards will come the resurrection of the soul, a rising of the new man or creature which Barclay calls the “Christ within.” If man remains “natural” his course is necessarily evil and he will perish in sin. With Barclay the term “natural” means sinful only when applied to the man who, after his eyes are opened, is content to remain a mere rational animal indifferent to the light of the Spirit; more is expected of him. Where goodness is there is God, for good works are the inevitable fruition of a growing spirit.
[The theology of Barclay’s age] seems to the modern mind to have placed more emphasis on man’s fall than on Christ’s raising him up again. The Quaker faith in man’s potential goodness was revolutionary heresy to the 17th century Puritan clergy. Barclay regarded [pessimistic] predestination as a hideous blasphemy against the mercy of God. Barclay balanced the Seed of Sin with a Seed of Light. [He protests against Charles II’s licentious court, the extravagant dress, the flattering of the King by addressing him with the plural “you,” rather than the singular “thou,” which filtered down through England’s upper class.
If 17th century testimonies are outmoded, the spirit behind them are not. Pacificism is as vital an issue today as it was then. Barclay’s goal was a way of living where we may remain in [“the world”] yet maintain a life of the spirit ordinarily possible only in the cloister. Barclay challenges both Calvinism and the fashionable World. The Society of Friends sat in communal silence, led only by the Spirit. [Barclay objected to the human will present in the pre-arranged order of service and the division of worshipers between laity and clergy. [He had nothing but contempt for the clergy’s theological hair-splitting]. [He said:] “I judge the Christian religion to be so far from being bettered [by them], that it is rather destroyed.”
On the whole the space allotted to each major point is proportionate with its treatment in the Apology; more space has been given to the peace testimony because of its extreme pertinence today. Barclay said: “What I have heard with the ears of my soul, & seen with my inward eyes, & my hands of handled of the Word of Life, & what hath been inwardly manifested to me of the things of God, that do I declare.” Eleanor Price Mather
BARCLAY IN BRIEF
I. BELIEF: Immediate Revelation—The understanding of the true knowledge of God is that which is most necessary to be known & believed in the first place. The certain, spiritual, saving heart-knowledge of God may be obtained only by inward immediate manifestation and revelation of God’s spirit. This truth hath been acknowledged by by professors of Christianity in all ages. The true seed in them hath been answered by God’s love. They find a distaste and disgust in all outward means. The apostle [Paul] uses the comparison that as the things of a man are only known to the spirit of man, so the things of God are only known by the Spirit of God.
Knowledge of Christ which isn't by the revelation of his own Spirit in the heart, [i.e. gathered from the words or writings of spiritual men] isn't properly the knowledge of Christ. The natural man of the largest capacity [using only] the best words, even scripture words, can't understand the mysteries of God’s kingdom as well as the least & weakest child who tasteth them by having them revealed inwardly by the Spirit. The Scriptures do declare that God’s converse with man was by the immediate manifestation of his Spirit. Christians now are to be led inwardly & immediately by the Spirit of God as the saints were of old, as it is positively asserted in scripture.
He [who says he is] ignorant of the inwardness of the Spirit of Christ, acknowledges himself to be in the carnal mind, which is enmity to God. Whatever he may know or believe of Christ, he has not [become] a Christian. Whatsoever is noble, worthy, desirable in the Christian faith, is ascribed to this Spirit. [Christianity] could no more subsist than the outward world without the sun. If any depart from this certain guide, it will not follow that the true guidance of the Spirit is uncertain [because it is rejected by] the weakness or wickedness of men. Divine inward revelations are not to be subjected to the test, either of the outward testimony of the scriptures or the natural reason of man; it is self-evident and clear, forcing the well-disposed understanding to assent.
The Scriptures—From these revelations of the Spirit of God to the saints have proceeded the Scriptures of Truth. [They declare the inward testimony of the Spirit primary & themselves secondary]. I myself have known friends [who are full of] divine knowledge of his truth, who were ignorant of the Greek & Hebrew & could not read their own language. They disagreed with an English translation that did not fit the manifestation of the truth in their own hearts, boldly affirming the Spirit of God never said so. [It turned out they were right]. [Translators will strain passages] to express their own opinion & notion of truth. God sometimes conveys comfort & consolation to us through his children, whom he raises up & inspires to speak or write a word in season. Mutual emanation of the heavenly life tends to quicken the mind, when at any time it is overtaken with heaviness. Seeing the snares the saints were liable to, & beholding their deliverance. We may thereby be made wise unto salvation.
The Condition of Man in the Fall—We confess that a seed of sin is transmitted to all from Adam. [Man is not automatically sinful, but by sinning they join with the seed]. It is called death in the scripture, and the body of death; it is a death to the life of righteousness and holiness. Scripture makes no mention of original sin, [which is an] invented and unscriptural barbarism. Many heathen philosophers [e.g. Plato, Pythagoras, Plotinus and others,] were sensible of the loss received by Adam, though they knew not the outward history. [They used images of dark caves, wandering, dead coals, clipped wings]. We ascribe to paradise a mystical signification and truly account it as that spiritual communion and fellow ship which the saints obtain with God by Jesus Christ.
Universal and Saving Light—The knowledge [of salvation] has been manifested to us by the revelation of Jesus Christ in us, the testimony of the Spirit in our hearts. The Light is not less universal than the seed of sin. Hence Justin Martyr stuck not to call Socrates a Christian, saying that all such as lived according to the divine word in them, were Christians, such as Socrates, Heraclitus and others. Some in those remote parts of the world where the knowledge of the history is wanting, may be made partakers of the divine mystery, if they suffer his seed and light. Light communion with the Father and the Son [may turn wicked men] from the evil to the good.
This is Christ within, which we are heard so much to speak of. We have said how that a divine, spiritual, & supernatural light is in all. As it is received, Christ comes to be formed & brought forth. We are far from saying said that Christ is formed in all men. Neither is Christ in all men by way of union. Christ is in all men like a seed. Christ lies crucified in them by their sins. As they look upon him & repent, he may come to be raised, & have dominion in their hearts. This seed in the hearts of all is the kingdom of God. As the whole body of a great tree is wrapped up in the seed of the tree, even so the kingdom of Christ is in every man’s & woman’s heart.
The grace and light strives and wrestles with all in order to save all; he that resists its striving, is the cause of his own condemnation; he that resists it not, it becomes his salvation. He that made us without us, will not save us without us. Man’s heart, as it resist or retires from the grace of God returns to its former condition again.
Reason—This light of which we speak is distinct & of a different nature from man’s soul. Man may apprehend in his brain a knowledge of God & the spiritual; yet it cannot profit him towards salvation, but rather hindereth. Every such man has set up Anti-Christ in himself, & sitteth in the temple of God as God. We look upon reason as fit to order & rule man in things natural. As the moon borrows her light from the sun, so ought men, if they would be rightly ordered in natural things, to have their reason enlightened by this divine & pure light.
Conscience—It is that knowledge in a man’s heart, arising from what agreeth or contradicteth anything believed by him. The Light as it is received, removes blindness of judgment, opens understanding, & rectifies both the judgment & the conscience. We continually commend men to the Light of Christ in the conscience.
Justification by Faith and Works—As many receive the light, it becomes in them a holy, pure, & spiritual birth. Since good works as naturally follow from this birth as heat from fire therefore are they of absolute necessity to justification. Works of the law are preformed in man’s own will, in conformity to the outward law & letter; works of grace or gospel are wrought in conformity to the inward and spiritual law by the power and Spirit of Christ in us, pure and perfect in their kind. Faith that worketh by love cannot be without works.
Perfection—How far may Christ prevail in us while we are in this life? How far may we prevail over our soul’s enemies, in & by Christ strength? We understand perfection as permitting growth, a perfection proportionable & answerable to man’s measure. Those who attain a measure of perfection may still fall into iniquity, & lose it. Though every sin weakens a man's spiritual condition, it doth not so as to destroy him altogether, or render him uncapable of rising again. Turn thy mind to light & Christ's spiritual law in the heart, so that this world's life may die & a new life be raised, lived henceforth to & for God. Then thou wilt be a Christian indeed.
II. WORSHIP: The Church—The Church as it is used in the holy scripture, signifies an assembly or gathering of many to 1 place; this is the real & proper signification of church. God hath called them out of the world & worldly spirit, to walk in Light & Life. [This church includes] whatsoever nation, kindred, tongue, or people as become obedient to God's holy light & testimony in their hearts. [This catholic church includes] Turks, Jews, even Christians blinded in some things in their understanding, or burdened with superstitions & formality.
Group Worship—All true, acceptable worship to God is offered in the inward & immediate moving & drawing of his own [limitless] Spirit. All other worship is superstition, will-worship, & abominable idolatry in God’s sight. To meet together we think necessary for God’s people; there is a need for joint & visible fellowship. In their spirits the secret power & virtue of life refreshes the soul. Some meetings pass without a word; & yet our souls have been greatly edified & refreshed, our hearts overcome with the secret sense of God’s power & Spirit.
When I came into silent assemblies of God’s people, I felt a secret power among them. I felt evil weakening in me & good raised up; I became knit & united unto them. Our worship consisteth of holy dependence of mind upon God. There is scarce any in whom God [doesn't raise up one] to minister to his brethren. We judge it needful there be in the 1st place a time of silence, during which every one may be gathered inward to the word & gift of grace. Waiting upon God must be exercised in man’s denying self, both inwardly & outwardly, abstracting from all the workings, imaginations, & speculations of his own mind. The little seed of righteousness which God hath planted in his soul receives a place to arise, & becometh a holy birth in man. By waiting there he comes to be accepted in God’s sight, to stand in his presence, hear his voice, & observe his holy Spirit’s motions.
When many are gathered together into the same life there is more of the glory of God. The good seed, as it ariseth, will be found to work as physick in the soul. When the light breaks through the darkness, there will be such a painful travail found in the soul, that will even work upon the outward man, and the body will be greatly shaken. And from this the name of Quakers was 1st reproachfully cast upon us; we are not ashamed of it. The great advantage of this true worship of God is that it consisteth not in man’s wisdom. The natural mind and will hath no delight to abide in it, because they find no room there for imagination and inventions [or his outward and carnal senses]. This form of worship being observed, is not likely to be long kept pure without the power; there is nothing in it to invite and tempt men to dote upon it, [besides the power].
Ministry—Those that the Spirit set apart for the ministry by its divine power and influence opening their mouths, and giving them to exhort, reprove, and instruct with virtue and power; these are thus ordained by God and admitted into the ministry by the free gift of God [as he seeth meet]. Every true minister of the gospel is ordained, prepared and supplied in the work of the ministry by the light or gift of God. Those who have this authority may and ought to preach the gospel; those who want [lack] the authority of this divine gift, however learned, or authorized by men and churches, are to be esteemed as deceivers & not true ministers of the gospel.
All may speak or prophesy by the Spirit; some are more particularly called to the work of ministry & therefore are fitted of the Lord to watch over their brethren. There are also elders, who though they be not moved to a frequent testimony [with a] declaration in words, they watch over & privately admonish the young, take care for widows, poor, & fatherless, [& see that] peace, love, unity, & soundness be preserved in the church of Christ.
We oppose the distinction of laity, and clergy, which in the scripture is not to be found. [These] are educated at schools on purpose to learn the art & trade of preaching, & must see to get a place; then they hath a set hire for a livelihood. The ministers we plead for, having freely received, freely give, and work honestly for bread to themselves and their families. If they be called by God and the work of the Lord hinder them from the use of their trades, take what is freely given them by [those they minister to]; and having food and raiment be content.
[They are sometimes illiterate, but] my heart hath been often greatly broken and tendered by that virtuous life that proceeded from the powerful ministry of those illiterate men, the evil in me often chained down, and the good reached to and raised. Was I not also a lover and admirer of knowledge, and sought after it? It pleased God early to withstand my endeavors, and made me seriously to consider that without holiness and regeneration, no man can see God. Among these excellent, though illiterate witnesses of God, I, with many others, have found the heavenly food that gives contentment. Let my soul seek after this learning, and wait for it forever.
Prayer/Song—Our adversaries agree that the motions & influence of God’s Spirit are not necessary to be previous thereunto, therefore they have set times in publick worship & in private devotion, at which they set about performing their prayers. Prayer is both very profitable, & a necessary duty commanded, but as we can do nothing without Christ, so neither can we pray without concurrence & assistance of his Spirit.
Inward prayer is secret turning of the mind towards God, where it looks up to God, joins with [God’s seed], breathes towards him, & is constantly breathing forth secret desires & aspirations towards him [i.e. “praying continually”] Outward prayer is when the spirit receives strength & liberty to bring forth sighs, groans, or words. Such as are watchful in their minds, & much retired in exercising inward prayer are more capable to use the outward frequently. When many are gathered in watchful mind, God doth frequently pour forth the Spirit of prayer. Outward prayer depends on the inward, so we cannot prefix set times to pray outwardly. The case for singing in worship is the same as for preaching & prayer; it must arise from the Spirit’s direct influence, from what is pure in the heart. [There is] no example of artificial music by organ, instruments, or voice in the NT.
Baptism/Communion—Baptism is the answer of good conscience before God, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Infant baptism is human tradition. That the one baptism isn't a washing of water is from I Peter 3: 21. Many baptized by water aren't saved. [But as to] the Spirit's baptism, none can have a good conscience & not be saved by it. The communion of Christ’s body & blood is inward, spiritual. Even they who received [spiritual] substance used the breaking of the bread in the church for a time, for the weak’s sake. Seeing that they are the shadow of better things, they cease in such as have obtained the substance. We certainly know that the day is dawned, in which God hath arisen, & hath dismissed all ceremonies & rites, & is only to be worshiped in Spirit.
III. TESTIMONIES—Even by the confession of their adversaries, they are found to be free of those abominations which abound among other professors. Our adversaries [insist on doing some things] which we have found to be in no ways lawful unto us, & have been commanded of the Lord to lay them aside. The nature of these things distinguish us, so that we can't hide ourselves from any without proving unfaithful to our testimony.
We do not intend to destroy the relations betwixt prince & people, master & servants, parents & children. We shall evidence that these natural relations are rather better established, than hurt by it. Our principle leaves every man to enjoy peaceably whatever his industry or his parents, have purchased to him. Would it not greatly contribute to Christianity’s commendation, & to the increase of the life & virtue of Christ, if all superfluous titles of honour, profuseness & playing were laid aside & forborne? [In those God has led out of such things], God hath produced mortification and abstraction from the love and cares of this world which was judged could only be obtained by those shut up in cloisters and monasteries.
Titles/ Hat & Knee—It isn't lawful for Christians to give or receive titles [for these reasons]: they are no part of that obedience which is due to magistrates or superiors; the apostles deserved [the titles of Holiness, Excellency, Emininence] better than any now who claim them; Christians are to seek the honor that comes from above, & not the honor that comes from below. [The use of the plural “you” began in Roman times]. It & the other titles of honor seem to have derived from monarchial government; which afterwards by degrees, came to be derived to private persons. This way of speaking proceeds from a high and proud mind. [With the use of the word “you,”] the pride of men placed God & the beggar in the same category. We use the singular equally to all.
Kneeling, bowing, & uncovering of the head is the outward signification of adoration towards God alone; it isn't lawful to give it to man, [for] what [then] is reserved for the Creator. Men being alike in creation, don't owe worship to one another, but all equally are to return it to God. Many of us have been sorely beaten & buffeted, yea, & imprisoned for months because we couldn't so satisfy proud unreasonable humors of proud men.
Apparel/Gaming—We shall not say that all persons are to be clothed alike, because it will perhaps neither suit their bodies nor estates. [For a person of fine clothing], the abstaining from fine clothing may be in him a greater act of mortification than the abstaining from finer clothes in the servant, who was never accustomed to them. What a country produces may be no vanity to the inhabitants to use. The iniquity lies in a lust of vanity which [causes them to] stretch to have things that from their rarity seem precious & so feed their lust the more.
[Gaming interferes with] having fear of the Lord, standing in awe of him, because this fear and awe is forgotten in their gaming. [While the mind may need some] divertisement to recreate the mind, we are not allowed any time to recede from the remembrance [and fear] of God. The relaxation of the mind from the more serious duties, [is such that] even in doing these things the soul carrieth with it that divine influence and spiritual habit, [so that if even the wicked do the same] yet they are done in a different Spirit. Innocent divertisements [include] visiting friends, hearing or reading history, gardening, geometrical and mathematical experiments, and such other things of this nature. In all which things we are not to forget God.
Swearing—It is no ways lawful for Christian to swear, whom Christ has called to his essential truth, which was before all oaths. Neither is it lawful for them to be unfaithful in this, that they may please others, or that they may avoid their hurt. Since Christ would have his disciples attain the highest pitch of perfection, he abrogated oaths, as a rudiment of infirmity and established the use of truth instead.
Fighting—The last thing to be considered, is revenge and war, an evil as opposite and contrary to the Spirit, & doctrine of Christ as light to darkness. Through contempt of Christ’s law the whole world is filled with violence, oppression, murders, ravishing of women, and all manner of cruelty. It is strange that men, made after the image of God, should have so much degenerated, that they rather bear the image and nature of [beasts], than of rational reason, [even] those who profess themselves disciples of our peaceable Lord and master Jesus Christ.
This great prophet [speaks clearly in Matthew 5:38-48]. Truly the words are so clear in themselves, that they need no illustration to explain their sense. [Yet there are those trying to reconcile violence & war with these words]. Whoever can find a means to reconcile these things, may be supposed to have found a way to reconcile God with the devil, Christ with Antichrist, light with darkness, & good with evil. Jesus’ words with respect to revenge command unto [would-be] disciples of Christ, a more perfect, eminent, & full [display] of charity, suffering & patience than was required of them [under] Moses' law. [Early Christian were faithful to these words].
Almost all the modern sects live in the neglect and contempt of this law of Christ, and likewise oppress others who do not agree with them for conscience sake. We have suffered much because we neither could ourselves bear arms, nor send others in our place, nor give our money for military [equipment]. We could not hold our doors, windows and shops closed, [in support of] the arms of the kingdom under which we live. [Those] at war together have implored our God for contradictory, impossible things; both cannot obtain victory.
If the magistrate be truly a Christian, he ought himself to obey the command of his master, & then he couldn't command us to kill them. To obey God is to exalt & perfect nature, to elevate it from the natural to the supernatural life. We deny not the present magistrates altogether the name of Christians, yet we may affirm that they are far from the perfection of the Christian religion. The present confessors of the Christian name aren't yet fitted for [our] form of Christianity, & therefore can't be undefending themselves until they attain perfection.
Liberty of Conscience—That no man hath power over the consciences of men is apparent; it's God's seat & throne in him. We understand by matters of conscience such as immediately relate betwixt God & man, or men & men that are under the same persuasion, as to meet together & worship God. The liberty we lay claim to is liberty & exercise of their conscience towards God & among themselves. Chrysostom said: “We must condemn & reprove the evil doctrines that proceed from Hereticks, but spare the men, & pray for their salvation.”
Of excellent patience & sufferings, God's witness called Quakers have given manifest proof. They went up & down, as they were moved of the Lord, preaching & propagating the truth in marketplaces, highways, streets & publick temples, though daily beaten, whipped, bruised, haled, & imprisoned. They kept their meetings for worship openly, & didn't shut the door, nor do it by stealth, that all might know it, & those who would might enter. When others came to break up a meeting, they were obliged to take every individual out by force, the worshipers not being free to give up liberty at the others’ command. And unless kept out by violence, the worshipers return peaceably to their place. [They even held worship in the rubbish of torn-down meeting houses].
Thus for a Christian man to vindicate his just liberty with so much boldness will in due time purchase peace. They greatly sin against this rule that in time of persecution do not profess their own way so much as they would if it were otherwise. Yet, when they get the magistrate on their side, they seek to establish their liberty by denying it to others. Our malicious enemies say that if we had the power, we would [likewise coerce and persecute others]; they only judge others by themselves. If ever we prove guilty of persecution, let us be judged the greatest of hypocrites, and let not any spare to persecute us. Amen, saith my soul.
CONCLUSION—If thou consider this system of religion here delivered, with its consistence and harmony, as well in itself as with the scriptures of truth, I doubt not but thou wilt say with me that this is the spiritual day of Christ’s appearance. As God hath prospered us, notwithstanding much opposition, so will he yet do, that neither the art, wisdom, nor violence of men or devils shall be able to quench that little spark that hath appeared.
http://www.pendlehill.org/product-category/pamphlets
www.facebook.com/pendlehill?fref=ts
Comments
Post a Comment