BARCLAY'S THESIS.
Barclay reduces the doctrinal system of the Friends to fifteen propositions or theological theses, which are briefly as follows: [1665]
1. The Foundation of Knowledge.--The height of happiness is in the true knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ (John xvii. 3).
2. Immediate Revelation.--This comes from the Son of God (Matt. xi. 27) through the testimony of the Spirit.
This is the inner light which has already been sufficiently explained.
3. The Holy Scriptures.--They contain the revelations of the Spirit of God to the saints. They are a declaration of the fountain, but not the fountain itself; they are the secondary rule of faith and morals, subordinate to the Spirit from which they derive all their excellency and certainty (John xvi. 13).
4. The Condition of Man after the Fall.--All men are by nature fallen, degenerated, and spiritually dead, but hereditary sin is not imputed to infants until they make it their own by actual transgression. Socinianism and Pelagianism are rejected, but also the doctrine of the 'Papists and most Protestants,' that a man without the grace of God may be a true minister of the gospel.
5. Universal Redemption by Christ.--God wills all men to be saved; Christ died for all men; the light is sent to every man for salvation, if not resisted.
On this point the Quakers side with Lutherans and Arminians against Calvinists, but go far beyond them.
6. Objections to the universality of redemption refuted.
7. Justification.--Man is regenerated and justified when he receives the inner light. It is not by our works that we are justified, but by Christ who is both the gift and the giver, and the cause producing the effects in us.
The Quakers closely connect justification with sanctification, and approach the Roman view, with this difference, that they teach justification in our works, not on account of our works. Penn distinguishes between legal justification, that is, the forgiveness of past sins through Christ, the alone propitiation, and moral justification or sanctification, whereby man is made inwardly just through the cleansing and sanctifying power and Spirit of Christ.
8. Perfection.--Man may become free from actual sinning, and so far perfect; yet perfection admits of growth, and there remains a possibility of sinning. [1666]
The Methodists have substantially adopted this view, and call it entire consecration or perfect love.
9. Perseverance.--Those who resist the light, or disobey it after receiving it, fall away (Heb. vi. 4-6; Tim. i. 6); but it is possible in this life to attain such a stability in the truth from which there can be no total apostasy.
This is a compromise between Calvinism and Arminianism.
10. The Ministry.--Those and only those are qualified ministers of the gospel who are illuminated and called by the Spirit, whether male or female, whether learned or unlearned. These ought to preach without hire or bargaining (Matt. x. 8), although they may receive a voluntary temporal support from the people to whom they administer in spiritual things.
11. Worship.--It consists 'in the inward and immediate moving and drawing of the Spirit, which is neither limited to places or times or persons.' All other worship which man appoints and can begin and end at his pleasure is superstition, will-worship, and idolatry.
All forms and even sacred music are excluded from the naked spiritualism of Quaker worship. It is simply reverent communion of the soul with God, uttered or silent. I once attended a Quaker meeting in London whose solemn silence was more impressive than many a sermon. I felt the force of the word, 'There was silence in heaven for the space of half an hour.' At another meeting I heard one man and several women exhort and pray in a tremulous voice and with reverential awe, as if in the immediate presence of the great Jehovah. All depends upon the power of the Holy Spirit.
12. Baptism.--It is 'a pure and spiritual thing, a baptism of the Spirit and of fire,' by which we are purged from sin (1 Pet. iii. 21; Rom. vi. 4; Col. ii. 12; Gal. iii. 27; John iii. 30). Of this the water-baptism of John was a figure commanded for a time. The baptism of infants is a human tradition, without Scripture precept or practice.
13. The Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ is likewise inward and spiritual, of which the breaking of bread at the last Supper was a figure. It was used for a time, for the sake of the weak, even by those who had received the substance, as the washing of feet and the anointing of the sick with oil was practiced; all which are only the shadows of better things. (John vi. 32-35; 1 Cor. x. 16, 17.)
This doctrine of the sacraments is a serious departure from the universal consensus of Christendom and the obvious intention of our Saviour. It can only be accounted for as a protest against the opposite extreme, which substitutes the visible sign for the invisible grace.
14. The Power of the Civil Magistrate.--It does not extend over the conscience, which God alone can instruct and govern, provided always that no man under pretense of conscience do any thing destructive to the rights of others and the peace of society. All civil punishments for matters of conscience proceed from the spirit of Cain the murderer.
Here the Quakers, like the Baptists, commit themselves most unequivocally to the doctrine of universal religious liberty as a part of their creed.
15. Salutations and Recreations.--Under this head are forbidden the taking off the hat to a man, the bowings and cringings of the body, and 'all the foolish or superstitious formalities' which feed pride and vanity and belong to the vain pomp and glory of this world; also all unprofitable and frivolous plays and recreations which divert the mind from the fear of God, from sobriety and gravity. Penn said of Fox that he was 'civil beyond all forms of breeding.'
The Apology of Barclay is a commentary on these propositions.
Note.--The Hicksites.--In the year 1827 a schism took place among the Friends in Philadelphia, and extended to most of the yearly meetings in America, but had no influence in England. Since then the Quakers are divided into 'orthodox' Quakers and 'Hicksites,' although the latter refuse to be called by any other name but that of 'Friends' or 'Quakers.' The founder of this rupture was Elias Hicks, born in Hempstead, Long Island, March 19, 1768; died in Jericho, N.Y., Feb. 27, 1830.
He took strong ground against slavery, and abstained from all participation in the fruits of slave labor. He was for a long time an acceptable preacher, but early in the present century he advocated radical Unitarian and other heterodox doctrines, which shocked the majority of the Quakers and led to commotion, censure, and schism. The first separation took place in the Yearly Meeting at Philadelphia, and then a similar one in New York, Baltimore, Ohio, and Indiana. Many espoused the cause of Hicks, in the interest of religious liberty and progress, without indorsing his heretical opinions on the articles of the Trinity, the divinity, and the atonement of Christ.
The extreme left of the Hicksites broke off in 1853 in Chester County, Pa., and organized a separate party under the name of Progressive Friends. They opened the door to all who recognize the equal brotherhood of the human family, without regard to sex, color, or condition, and engage in works of beneficence and charity. They disclaim all creeds and disciplinary authority, and are opposed to every form of ecclesiasticism.
The Hicksite movement drove the orthodox Quakers more closely to the Scriptures, and called forth several official counter-demonstrations.
On the 'Hicksite' Quakers, see Elias Hicks, Journal of his Life and Labors, and his Sermons, Phila. 1828; and Janney (a Hicksite), History of the Society of Friends, Vol. IV.
[1648] The name 'Friends' designates a democratic brotherhood in Christ. The name 'Quakers' is sometimes wrongly derived from the warning of Fox to the magistrates 'to quake for fear' and 'to tremble at the Word of the Lord' (Isa. lxvi. 2). It comes rather from their own tremulous utterance of emotion in prayer and exhortation. Barclay (Apology, p. 310, on Prop. XI.) speaks of the trembling motion of the body under the power of the truth, by which Quakers are exercised as in the day of battle, and says: 'From this the name of Quakers, i.e., Tremblers, was first reproachfully cast upon us; which, though it be none of our choosing, yet in this respect we are not ashamed of it, but have rather reason to rejoice therefore, even that we are sensible of this power that hath oftentimes laid hold of our adversaries and made them yield unto us.' Allinson says (1.c. p. 668): 'The epithet Quakers was given in derision, because they often trembled under an awful sense of the infinite purity and majesty of God, and this name, rather submitted to than accepted by them, has become general as a designation.'
[1649] 'The Lord forbade him,' says Sewel, 'to put off his hat to any man, high or low; he was required to Thou and Thee every man and woman without distinction, and not to bid people Good-morrow or Good-evening; neither might he bow or scrape his leg to any one.'
[1650] The charges of Lord Macaulay against Penn's integrity have been repelled by W. E. Forster (William Penn and Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1850) and J. Paget (Edinburgh, 1858).
[1651] Palfrey, History of New England, Vol. II. pp. 461-485; Dexter, As to Roger Williams,' etc., pp. 124 sqq. One such case of Oriental teaching by signs occurred also in England, and is mentioned by Fox himself in his Journal: 'The Lord made one to go naked amongst you, a figure of thy nakedness, and as a sign, before your destruction cometh, that you might see that you were naked and not covered with the truth.' See Stoughton, The Church of the Commonwealth, p. 360.
[1652] He wrote a curious book, George Fox digg'd out of his Burrowes, etc., which was republished by the Narragansett Club, 1872, with an introduction by Prof. Diman. Comp. Dexter, 1.c. p. 138.
[1653] On these earlier confessions, see Evans, pp. xii. sqq.
[1654] Comp. Ch. XI., concerning Baptism, and Bread and Wine. I will select, as a specimen, the questions on the Lord's Supper:
'Ques. I perceive there was a baptism of water, which was John's baptism, and is therefore by John himself contradistinguished from Christ's: was there not likewise something of the like nature appointed by Christ to his disciples, of eating bread, and drinking wine, in remembrance of him?
'Ans. For I have received of the Lord, that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread; and when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat; this is my body which is broken for you; this do in remembrance of me. After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood; this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. 1 Cor. xi. 23-25.
'Ques. How long was this to continue?
Ans. For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till he come. 1 Cor. xi. 26.
'Ques. Did Christ promise to come again to his disciples?
'Ans. And I will not leave you comfortless; I will come to you. Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words, and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. John xiv. 18, 23.
'Ques. Was this an inward coming?
'Ans. At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. John xiv. 20.