Quakers And Quakerism

QUAKERS and QUAKERISM. –

I. ORIGINS AND DOCTRINE

The name quakers or “tremblers” is a derogatory term given to the Society of Friends (Friends' Society), founded by Giorgio Fox in 1643. This sect, the product of the puritanism (v.) of the time, owes its ability to develop to Cromwell and the regime of broad toleration that he introduced for nonconformist groups. Under the authoritarian Anglicanism of Laud, as under the Presbyterianism of the Covenant, the Society of Friends would probably have been annihilated from the very beginning.

1. Origin

Giorgio Fox, born at Drayton (Leicester) in 1624, was the son of a weaver, in whose home the Bible was frequently read and the slightest infraction of moral laws was regarded with scandal. One day, when a cousin of his, a clergyman, dragged him to the tavern, he was so distressed at having drunk more than was proper that he took to prayer, imploring God’s forgiveness; he believed that he had immediately received “the word of God in his heart” and that he had been invested with the spirit of the prophets of Israel. Having begun to preach a mystical doctrine free from any rite or Sacrament, he encountered violent opposition: the clergy summoned him before the courts, while the people were divided. During the trial, appearing before Judge Bennett (in the county of Derby), he implored him to “honor God and tremble before His Word.” The judge replied by calling him a “trembler,” in English quaker: hence the name that remained attached to the sect.

2. Method of expansion

It was rudimentary but effective. The quakers, who called themselves Friends or also Children of Truth or Children of Light, entered churches at the time of the public Office; they would then raise their voices and, calmly and firmly, denounce the pastor as “a dead dog,” a mercenary attached to benefices and titles, a preacher of gross superstitions. Such interventions provoked enormous scandal: some attacked the speakers, while others defended them, and the sect thus gained new recruits. The quakers displayed such joy in receiving ill-treatment that an aura of martyrdom immediately glorified them before the crowd.

3. Doctrine

It is advisable to distinguish Fox’s teaching from that of the sect’s theologian, Roberto Barclay (1648–90). Fox was uneducated, knew nothing but the Bible, and preached above all against the contemporary “excesses of puritanism”; against militarism, he recommended horror of every war; against the use of force, the patience of martyrdom; against the repression of vice, the influence of example; against a gloomy and sorrowful religion, constant joy; against fear of hell, the determination to develop the heaven that each person carries in his heart. In place of the Bible alone, he set individual inspiration. Robert Barclay gave these ideas systematic form and expounded them in his principal work, Apologia theologiae vere christianae (1676; translated into English in 1678 and subsequently into German and French). Barclay appealed to human sentiment; in every person there is a natural revelation, since a “substantial seed” was placed in him by God. Barclay rejected the dogmas of original sin, Calvinist predestination, and irresistible Grace. He excluded all the Sacraments, including Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, considering spiritual communion sufficient.

II. HISTORY

At the time of the Restoration under Charles II, Fox counted 60,000 adherents; his activity was increasingly opposed, but he lived long enough to see toleration proclaimed in 1689. He died in 1691, after having been imprisoned eight times.

Meanwhile, the Society had made a brilliant acquisition in the person of William Penn, who became the most illustrious of the Quakers. Born in 1644, Penn was the son of a highly renowned and esteemed admiral; he was won over to the Quaker cause by the preacher Thomas Lee. In 1670 he inherited a considerable fortune from his father, which he placed at the sect’s disposal. He moved to America, where he founded a colony to which the King wished to give the name Pennsylvania. There he established the principle of non-violence and concluded with the Indians, without bureaucratic formalities and without an oath, a peace treaty of which Voltaire was able to say that it had never been either repudiated or violated. In 1673 Penn founded the city of Philadelphia; the remainder of his life was highly eventful, and he died (1713) in prison for debt, just as in his youth he had been imprisoned for his ideas.

III. PRESENT STATE

Quakerism has continually suffered from the spirit of independence that it had developed in its adherents; schisms and separations reduced its numbers in England from 60,000 to 17,000 members in 1735; it fared better in the United States, despite further schisms. In 1822 a certain Elie Hick, who taught pure deism and denied the divinity of Jesus Christ, was excommunicated along with 2,000 disciples. At present it is necessary to distinguish: the Orthodox Society of Friends, which comprises nine-tenths of the Quakers; the Hicksite Society of Friends, few in number; the conservative Wilburite Orthodox Friends, separated groups gathered under the direction of John Wilbur; and the Religious Society of Friends of Philadelphia, or Primitive Quakers. These four groups number no more than 150,000 adherents, of whom 120,000 are in the United States, 25,000 in England, 1,000 in Australia, and the remainder dispersed throughout Germany, Denmark, France (Nimes), Turkey, Alaska, India, Mexico, Japan, Syria, and the Congo. Since 1866 there has existed an association of the Friends’ foreign missions. The influence of the Quakers has always been greater than their numbers, which have never reached 200,000 persons.