Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/162

Rh 150 QUAKERS Quakers to parliament, the establishment of the university of London, and more recently still the opening to Dis- senters of Oxford and Cambridge, have all operated on the body. It has almost entirely abandoned its peculiarities of dress and language ; the cultivation of music and the other arts is no longer discouraged except by a very few ; and literary and scientific tastes have been cultivated all the more because their attention was not preoccupied with the love of field sports or of dancing. In fact a number of men either Quakers or of Quaker origin and proclivi- ties, large in proportion to the small body with which they are connected, occupy positions of influence in English society, and carry with them, not the full body of Quaker doctrine, but some leaven of Quaker habits and thoughts and feelings. Doctrine. It is not easy to state with certainty the doctrines of a body which has never adopted any creed, and whose views have undoubtedly undergone from time to time changes more or less definite. But the accepted writings of its members and the statements as to doctrine contained in the Book of Christidh Discipline of the society furnish materials. The most characteristic doctrine of Quakerism is un- doubtedly this that there is an immediate revelation of the Spirit of God to each individual soul, that this light is universal and comes both to the heathen and the Chris- tian, and thereby the love and grace of God towards man- kind are universal. It is almost needless to call attention to the direct antithesis between this doctrine of the Quakers and the various doctrines of election held by the Puritans, so that, if Quakerism be called the climax of Puritanism, it is so only as the rebound is the climax of the wave. From the doctrine of the sufficiency of the inward light proceed several other of the peculiar views of Quakers. They have denied the necessity and abstained from the practice of the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's supper. The one baptism, says Barclay (12th pro- position), " is a pure and spiritual thing, to wit, the baptism of the spirit and fire of which the baptism of John was a figure which was commanded for a time, and not to continue for ever." " The communion of the body and blood of Christ," says the same author (13th proposi- tion), " is inward and spiritual, which is the participation of his flesh and blood by which the inward man is daily nourished in the hearts of those in whom Christ dwells, of which things the breaking of bread by Christ with his disciples was a figure." But not merely do the Quakers dispense with the sacra- ments ; they exist without any priesthood or regular or ordained ministry ; they allow the liberty of unlicensed preaching and prayer to every member of their society in their assemblies, and those in whom the body recognizes the true gifts are publicly acknowledged as ministers. But by this act they attain to no greater power in the society than they possessed before. By the strength and power of the light of God, says Barclay in his 10th pro- position, " every true minister of the gospel is ordained, prepared, and supplied in the work of the ministry ; and by the leading, moving, and drawing thereof ought every evangelist and Christian pastor to be led and ordered in his labour and work of the gospel both as to the place where, the persons to whom, and as to the times when he is to minister." The Quakers not only have no stated ministry, but they hold that no form of worship is so good as a patient waiting upon God in silence " by such as find no outward ceremony, no observations, no words, yea not the best and purest words, even the words of Scripture, able to satisfy their weary and afflicted souls." Hence, although per- mitting addresses from their members, they sit frequently silent both in family worship and in their meetings. Of late years, however, in some places passages from the Bible are read in their meetings for worship. Furthermore the Quakers maintain the equal right of women with men to preach and pray in their assemblies; and they cite the four daughters of Philip who prophesied, and other women who are mentioned in the New Testament as having laboured much in the Lord, as showing that their practice is in accord with that of the early church. Refusing to acknowledge the ministry of the Estab- lished Church, and holding that they could thus best testify to " the spiritual reign and government of Christ," the Quakers refused to pay all church rates, tithes, and other ecclesiastical demands. To the year 1875 they maintained the same objection against tithe-rent charge, and then abandoned it. The Quakers deny the lawfulness for a Christian of all war, defensive or otherwise, and have always refused, often at the expense of much suffering, to take any part in military matters ; they equally deny the lawfulness for a Christian man to take any oath, even in a court of justice, and the law of England has long recognized their affirmations as giving validity to their evidence ; they have denied themselves the cultivation of music, attend- ance at the theatres, and hunting, shooting, and field sports generally as vain amusements inconsistent with the gravity and seriousness of Christian life ; they have insisted on the duty of using language not only free from that profanity which was so common until lately but stripped of all flattery and purged of all dross of heathen- ism ; they enforced the duty of plainness of dress and of excluding from it, and from the modes of salutation and address, everything calculated to satisfy vanity. The result of these doctrines on Quaker manners was notorious, and proved a continual source of objection to them on the part of their fellow-men, and frequently led to persecutions. They adopted the singular number in addressing a single individual, however exalted ; and the " thou" and "thee" used to a magistrate or a judge was often a cause of great irritation. They refused to say " good night," " good morrow," or " good speed" ; they adopted a numerical nomenclature for the months of the year and the days of the week. They refused to bow or to remove their hats, and for this they suffered much. 1 They forbore the drinking of healths, not merely as a vanity, but as " a provocation to drink more than did people good." They adopted a remarkable simplicity in their marriages and their funerals. They used also great plain- ness in their houses and furniture and in their dress ; and, by their tenaciously adhering to forms of attire which had fallen into disuse, their dress both for men and women became antique and peculiar, and Quakers were easily re- cognized as such by the garments they wore. Further- more they discarded the usual symbols of grief on the death of their relations. One point of morality on which the Friends have long insisted deserves notice. They require their members who may have been released from their debts by bank- ruptcy or composition, when able to pay their debts in full, to do so notwithstanding their legal discharge. In the great doctrines of Christianity embodied in the apostles' creed the Quakers are in accord with their fellow- Christians : they believe in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in the atonement by Christ, and in sanctification by the Spirit ; they receive and believe the Scriptures as proceeding from the Spirit of God. A letter addressed by George Fox and others to the governor of Barbados in 1671 (Journal, 1st ed., p. 358), and the " General Advices" 1 See Thomas Ellwood's Journal for an account of his sufferings in this matter, at once pathetic and ludicrous.