A History of the Society of Friends: Compiled from Its Standard Records, and ...

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Preface

Although Friends have many ably written Records of the rise and progress of their Society, yet they are, as is well known, in a ^reat measure unadapted to general reading, either from their quaintness, or their verbosity of style. This readily accounts for the acknowledged ignorance of the Society, as to its history, and especially the youth, who deem it a severe task, instead of a pleasure, to ponder over its pages, where they might with advantage reflect on the character and lives of those men, who, though they did not dazzle the eyes of mankind with any brilliant schemes of worldly ambition, ennobled themselves and the human family, by raising and supporting the standard of Christ within, as the bulwark of pure religion.

After some reflection, I have been induced to suppose that vast benefit would accrue to the Society, if a compendious and modern history of it were published ; incited by this consideration, I was not discouraged by the prospect of the laborious undertaking, from engaging, during the hours of relaxation from an arduous profession, in the task of collecting and digesting the materials necessary for such a work.

The authorities and works from which I have selected the matter for this Book, are those of the standard historians and primitive members of the Society.

yi PREFACE.

If I hare succeeded in my endeavors, and judiciously availed myself of the materials virithin my reach ; if the work answers the expectations of my friends, and causes satisfaction and profitable reflection to my readers in general, my design in undertaking it will not be altogether unanswered. It will be noticed that this Book is entirely devoted to transactions on the other side of the Atlantic, it being my design, at some period not very fisur distant, should my life and health be spared me, to produce another Work similar, and being Part II. of this, 'containing a full account of the trials and privations to which the Society were subjected in this Western World. W. R. W.

Introduction

THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH PRIOR TO GEORGE FOX.

The history of the Christian Cbarcb, presents the record of a conflict, which, for eighteen centuries, has been waged within her bosom, between two opposing principles^— ^These antagonistic principles are SfnrituaMy and Formaiism ; the one, divine in its origin, and addressing itself to the highest part of oar nature ; the other, earthly in its source, and finding an ally and a slave in the gross and sensual propensities of the human souL

Heathenism presents a melancholy instance of the workings of the formal principle, when the divine and life^ving spirit has become extinct Those noble religious truths which occasionally shine forth in the writings of some of the early Heathen, are the fragments of a primitive revelation from the Divine Spirit to the souls of those holy men, who lived in the first ages of the world But their posterity, while they main« tained the fo^ms of worship, ceased to abide in its spirit ; the divine life died within them, and their communication with heaven was soon cut ofi*; and the dim twilight of traditionary knowledge gradually deepening into a profound and stariess midnight, they finally sank into all the stupid and debasing practices of an idolatrous superstition. Then came to pass that saying of Paul, ^ Because when they knew Gk>d, they glorified him not as God, but became vain in their imagina^ yJU INTRODUCTION.

tions, therefore their foolish hearts were darkened ; professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts and creeping things." This view is supported by the fact that the golden age of heathenism is in the distant past, its progress is a downward one, it waxes worse and worse as we come down from the morning of time ; it is like a body in which the vital principle is extinct, and in which there is nothing to arrest its tendency to corruption and decay. In the moral degradation of heathen lands, we can therefore behold a sad exhibition of the complete triumph of dead fprm over spiritual Ufe.

In the Christian Church, all the changes which have transpired since the days of its founder, may be referred to the temporary predominance of one of these principles over its antagonist ; but as we recede from this day, formalism is seen gradually to triumph, until, at length, the spiritual seed are almost extinct, and the formal principle, personified in the Roman PontiflF, lords it over the debased nations in all the plenitude of priestly despotism.

A view of some of the principal phases of this conflict will form an appropriate introduction to the history of that people, whom God has raised up in these latter days as witnesses for the truth. Such a sketch must of course be very general and imperfect Indeed, its object is not so much to inform as to remind ; it simply proposes to conduct the reader through scenes with which he is presumed to be already familiar, and it therefore merely notices some of the more prominent objects, leaving the minuter details associated with them to be called up for their illustration by the reader's memory.

Before we speak of the Great Author of the new dispensation, or follow its first preachers in their widely extended labors, it will be well to glance briefly at some circumstances in the state of the world at that time, highly favorable to the spread of Christianity, and its general reception. All previous events had doubtless a preparative bearing upon the eet^

INTRODUCTION. [^

ting up of a spiritaal kingdom in the fulness of time ; but Divine Providence had especially chosen the Romans as the instruments of preparing the world for the planting of the seed of life. All the ancient monarchies had successively fallen before the irresistible prowess of their victorious legions ; the boundaries of the civilized world had also been greatly extended by the subjugation of many barbarous tribes, so that the city of the Caesars was the metropolis of the nations ; and the many avenues of communication from the centre to the wide d4mfe.encc of this vast dominion, opened so many highways for the gospel to reach the most distant hamlets of men, with the joyful message of salvation. The Roman conquests had also broken down another obstacle to the spread of truth which might have proved insuperable ; they had in a measure obliterated national partitions, and with them national jealousies; the word '< stranger" had ceased to be the synonym of enemy, and, as members of one universal empire, the nations of the earth began to regard and greet each other as l^ethren. Another circumstance, highly favor* able to the difiusion of a knowledge of Christianity, was the existence of a language understood more or less over the whole globe ; the Greek tongue was in almost universal use, not only as the language of letters, but also of commerce and familiar conversation. Cicero remarks in one of his orations, that the Greek was read in almost every land — ^^'grseca legun* tur in omnibus fere gentibus f cmd how well the Apostles availed themselves of this fact, appears from the circumstance that all the New Testament scriptures were written in that tongue.

But Providence had employed Rome not only to give the - truth access to the ear of mankind, but also to prepare a way for its cordial and permanent lodgment in their hearts. She had been the unconscious instrument of causing heathenism to lose, in a great measure, its former hold upon the confidence and affections of the people ; so that now it depended for the prolongation of its existence almost solely upon the sdfish exertions of the priesthood^ and its alUanoe with the

3^ INTBODUCTION.

State. The religions of the old world were strictly local religions : every state had its own divinities, who watched over its welfare with an exclusive care ; who infused wisdom into its council ; who granted victory to its arms ; and who bestowed upon the labors of peaceful industry a rich and bountiful reward. One very essential element of the religious sentiment was patriotism : they loved their altars for the same reason that they loved their firesides ; they reverenced and propitiated their gods, because they were attached to their institutions, and the worship of the one vms co-terminous with the boundaries of the other. This element of religious feeling was abstracted by Rome, when, breaking down national partitions, and obliterating national prejudices, she brought all the tribes of men within the pale of an universal citizenship. Mankind now began to feel their need of a more universal religion — a religion more congenial with the new relation into which they had been brought with one another — a religion whose claims upon their spirits should rest upon the foundation, and whose spiritual gift and promise should satisfy the wants of their common humanity. Such a religion Rome attempted to fabricate, by amalgamating the various local systems into one, which should be universal. She allowed each nation to retain its own god, but she intro duced beside these those which were foreign. But this attempt to prop up heathenism, only accelerated its fall ; for in these different religious systems which she thus sought to amalgamate, men saw nothing but the contradiction and opposition of conflicting errors. The old national conviction was shaken, and that religious enthusiasm, which had its root in patriotism, became extinct ; and as the nations looked upon the confronted rabble of divinities which filled the Roman Pantheon, it was with scepticism and apathy.

The more cultivated and reflecting had long before betaken themselves to philosophy, by which they had sought to give a spiritual consistency to the literal absurdities of the popular mythologies. But in the new state of things, these systems wtre also confronted ; and exhibiting nothing but opposition nfTRODUCTION.

of sentiments^ their adherents, bewildered and lost in inquiries after truth, began to question its existence. Manjr therefore sank into a cheerless, heart-freezing atheism; others contented themselves with a shallow, lifdess deism ; while others, who felt in the world an Infinite Spirit, jet questioned his personality, embraced a pantheism, which confused the Creator with the works of his hand.

But man has a religious nature ; and he cannot, for anjr length of time,^ stifle diat desire for int^course with heaTen which his MakeV has implanted iniiis bosom, and in the grap tification of which he can alone find satisfying enjoyment Truth also is the natural aliment of ^a soul ; and it is only in the believing apprehension of certain great principles as true, that the moral consciousness of man can find satisfao* tion and repose.

i This led some thinking and single-minded men, as early as the time of Christ, to abandon all die existing systems of philosophy, as systems, and to form a new one, by choosing from all such parts as wore the semblance of truth. This new philosophy obtained, at a later period, the name of Eclectic Platonism^ the spiritual doctrines of that great teacher being the basis of the system. This philosophy, by teaching its disciples to recognize and embrace the truth, wherever found, and by exciting and encouraging a more spiritual frame of mind, constituted a very important preparation iot the spread of Christianity. It led men to the consciousness of possessing a god-like nature akin to the Divinity, and it taught them to recognize in this life a state of preparation for a higher existence, where the soul, freed from all moral and intellectual infirmity, should spend its immortality in the perfect contemplation and enjoyment of the truth. These indefinite but sincere and ardent desires after spiritual knowledge which it awakened, but was unable fully to satisfy, led its disciples to long for some heavenly revelation, which, like Christianity, should be placed beyond all doubt, and which, amid the tempeitoous strife of human

^\ INTEODUCnON.

opinioiics might aSbrd a calm and secure resting-plaoe for the weary spirit

It is true that the philosopher was slow to recognize such a revelation in the crucified Nazarene. Too often he rejected the spiritual bread for which his soul was famishing, because the hand that proffered it was the hand of an illiterate Jew. The severe and lofty morality of the Gospel also met with a cold reception from his carnal inclinations ; that which he had contemplated and admired, was an intellectual abstraction ; but h^re was a system which brought his heaven to earth, which reduced his ideal to practice ; which inculcated a life of self-denial and self-mortification, and required him to ^t down like a litde child at the feet of Christ ; so that too often, he whom his better judgment would have made a convert to the new faith, was changed by his pride and passions into its bitter, unrelenting persecutor. Still, there was ii^ Ctttistianity a divine beauty and power which all the pride of human reason, and all the opposition of human depravity, could not long withstand ; so that on the whole those more spiritual views of religion and that deep sense of inward want, which this system had taught and engendered were a real and most important preparation for the final predominance of the Christian faith.

There is yet another people whose religious state, at the period of which we are speakings demands our consideration. This is that peculiar people whom the God of heaven had chosen as the medium of that revelation of himself which, in the fulness of time and in a more spiritual form, was to be imparted by them to the Grentiles. In the Jewish religion we find in broad contrast to the debased tribes of the most enlightened pagan nations, the idea of one holy, almighty, all wise, merciful and independent God, the creator and governor of the world, to whose glory all things must be subservient, and on whom all things depend. The Jews, in their oonoeptions of the Divine character, the nature of his worship and the duties of justice and charity, which man, as the creature of Ghxl, owes to his fellow man, were as superior to

OTTRODUCTION. ^

tbek most cultivated ootempcniaries, as ia 4ie arts^ arms and lettets they fell below them. The loftiest purpose of Judainoa, however, was to prepare the way for a more perfect aad glorious dispensation of truth, which should go forth frcnn its boaom. Toward this last, all its ritual pointed, and from the glimpses of the coming day thus afforded to the eye of faidi, the pious Israelite derived all his solace and joy in waiting upon the Gk)d of his fathers. The Jewish religion was a shadow, of which Christianity is the substance ; it was a [Hromise, of which Christianity is the fulfilment The law of Moses was designed merely to be a pedagogue to lead m^d to Jesus Christ The Church of God then was, as in &at stage of its development He intended it to be, a Theocracy ; the Jews guarded the sacred deposit of revelation with a spirit of jealous exdusiveness ; they proudly exduded from a participation in their birthright, all the other children of Adam, except the few who, by conformity to their national rites, received a partial adoption into the family of AbrahcuEn. This being the case, Judsusm in its then existing form was utiedy unfit for universal difinsion ; it was essentially a local rdigion, the matmal shadow of a better system to cc»ne ; and before it could become the faith of all nations, a light to lighten the Gtentiles, its pure moral and rekgious spirit needed to be purged from its Jewish accidents, and to put on a more spiritual and universal form«

When the founder of the new dispensation appeared in our world, Judaism exhibited in the perscms of its professors all the melancholy symptoms of speedy decay. All that spirit* uality of mind which their fathers had manifested, had departed with them; and since Caith no long^ dwelt in the hearts of the worshippers, the worship which they still ou^ wardly paid, was merely formal, burdensome, and hypocriticaL The outward forms of religion, which are always magnified the more as its spirit dies, were indeed kept up with a punctilious and superstitious exactness ; but this robe of external sanctity, in which the degenerate sons of the old prophets paraded themselves before the worid, too often

3Qy INTRODUCTION.

covered hearts, of which ambition, avarice, sensuality, and even sceptidsm, were the unclean inhabitants. Josephus, himself a Jew, represents their high priests and rulers as men of abandoned diaracter, who obtained their places by Inribery ; and our Saviour likens their rdigious teachers unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful without^ but within are filled with dead men's bones and all unclean* ness.

Passing by the great schism between the worshippers at Jerusalem and Mount Gerizim, the Jews proper were divided into three principal sects, in all of which the formal princijde was predominant, though wearing on each a widely different garb.

Of these the Pharisees were the most numerous, and from an affectation of superior sanctity, which so often imposes upon the mass, they were by far the most popular. Their religion, however, may well be styled the idolatry of formal* ism. The temple and the ritual, Moses and the Rabbins, seem to have usurped in their minds the place of GhxL Their piety had its seat, not in the heart, but in the counten* ance. It consisted not in marks of love, and spiritual oneness with their Maker, but in a spurious, lifeless ortiiodoxy, and an ostentatious round of ceremonial observances. They made long prayers and devoured widows' houses, they tithed the very herbs which grew in their gardens, but omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith. In opposition to the Sadducees, they indeed held to a spirit* ual interpretation of the sacred writings ; but instead of regarding this as a key to the deep things of the spirit, they only employed it as an instrument for multiplying those frivolous and burdensome superstitions, under which the miserable Hebrew was already bowed to the earth. Not content with even this, they had elevated the glosses and dogmas -of their doctors to an authority equal, and even par* amount, to that of the Word of God ; so that their ^tem was a miserable and unseemly patchwork of things new and old^ divine and human. ^ We seem to stand," says John Von

IKTRODUCnON. ^y

MoUer^qpeakingof iti^amongtheniinsof apalaoe,iii which die eld architecture is so defaced by inooograous ornaments, and the huge columns so hidden mider capitals of hideous design, that we are obliged to dig in order to bring forth to view the ancient woiiananship."

The Sadducees were composed mostly of the opulent, that class who from the common influence of that luxury which accompanies wealth, so often smother in the enjoyment of sense, the higher desires of their nature. Of the Jewish Scriptures, they, like the Samaritan, received the Pentateuch alone ; and they adhered so strictly to its letter, that they confined all its teachings to the present wcnrld, and even went so far as to maintain that there is no spirit and no future life. The self-invented and burdensome ceremonial of the Pharisees they rejected, but inasmuch as they were equaUy destitute of religious life, they were as formal in the breach, as their rivals were in their observance. Their system was a negative formalism, which, as all experience shows, is quite as incompatible with a truly religious spirit, as that which is positive. In one point, however, resulting doubtless from thdr latitudinarian views, diey contrast favorably with their more bigoted opponents— 4hey were less exclusive in their feelings, as well as more just and charitable in their actions.

The Essenes were composed of a very different class, and possessed a very different character. In their habits they were quiet, frugal, and industrious ; and remote from the noise of cities, in distant agricultural communities, they led a chaste, inoffensive, and contemplative life. They seemed to possess a certain inward religious life, and they certainly exhibited in their actions a degree of practical piety ; yet their religion was too plainly of a monkish and mystical cast to be recognized as belonging to the same spiritual family vnth that of JcQus Christ With all their excellent qualities, and they had many, there is mixed up an outward asceticism, a proud spirit of separation from the rest of mankind, and an undue attachment to peculiar forms as essential, utterly at variance with the true spirit of inward religion.

^ IHTRODUCnON.

The vast multitude of Jews, who then, as now, were scattered over the world in the pursuit of gain, seem chiefly to have been Pharisees. There were some, however, and mostly in Egypt, who had imbibed from a long residence abroad, a taste for the literature and philosophy of the Greeks. Some of these Hellenitic Jews were thus led to despise and forsake the religion of their fathers ; but others, more penetrating, seeing the immense superiority of Judaism to the systems of Paganism, were yet disposed to retain it, not, however, as a Divine and soul-purifying religion, but only as the embodiment of their philosophic dreams. These last, therefore, degraded God's wisdom into a mere echo of man's carnal reason ; and in these philosophising Jews, the pure truths of the gospel encountered their most bitter and uncompromising opponents.

At length, in the fulness of time, the Founder of the new dispensation, the true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world, appeared upon our earth. The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us full of grace and truth. This event forms the culminating point of all history; it opens a new and more glorious era in the annals of the human race.

Of the early part of the earthly career of Jesus, and the peculiar influences under which his character was formed, much has been conjectured, but little is known. When about thirty years of age he commenced his mission ; he " began to preach," says the Evangelist, " and to say repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."

A few obscure and illiterate men, whose hearts were drawn towards him by the Spirit, became his disciples, and to these he first unfolded the principle^ of that spiritual kingdom, which he came to establish. The germ of this kingdom is the truth, which finds a response in every bosom, that true religion is a holy state of heart ; and that to obt€un it, the natural man must be bom again by the renewing of the Holy Ghost, and become spiritually a new creature. In de* veloping this idea to the minds of his humble fdlowers, he

INTRODUCTION. ^yg

sought to convince them of the utter worthlessness of all that merely external righteousness in which holiness of character was then thought to consist. He taught them that acceptance and communion with God were to be enjoyed, not in the mechanical observance of outward religious forms, but in the sincere exercise of those pure desires and affections which the Father of grace originates in our hearts. " For I say unto you that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.'* In this manner did he seek to purge religion from its human and Jewish leaven. In this way did he eliminate the divine principle of an inward life, from that mass of sensual observances which had so long buried it from human sight. Thus " the most gracious God," says William Penn, " caused the light to shine out of darkness, and the day-star began to rise in the hearts of believers, giving unto them the knowledge of God in the face of his Son Jesus Christ." " The kingdom of God," said the great teacher, " cometh not with observation." True religion neither consists in nor depends upon anything material or outward. It is, therefore, not to be gone out after. It is not to be sought in the temple, in the ritual, or in the priest But a man who loves and serves God in the spirit, he is the true worshipper, whether he live the life of an anchorite, in some desert solitude, or ply his busy vocation on the mart of some crowded city. " The kingdom of heaven is within you — Behold ! the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeketh such to worship him." And this is the covenant which He will make with them : " I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them ; and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more."

For more than three years the good Shepherd went about to seek and to save the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Patiently and assiduously he labored tb instruct his countrymen in <fivine things dnd to bring tkem into that kingdom

Xviii INTRODUCTION.

where, guided by the spirit, thej might enjoy not only freedom from the heavy burdens which their corrupt priests had imposed upon them, but a purer and more exalted communion with the Father of their spirits. To accomplish this work, which had been assigned him by the Father, he toiled, suffered, and died. Anointed with the Holy Ghost and with power, he unostentatiously went about doing good, proclaiming everywhere the glad tidings of the kingdom. He healed the sick, he instructed the ignorant, he reclaimed the erring, he poured the balm of consolation into the hearts of the sorrowful, he preached the gospel to the poor.

But whUst the light thus shone in darkness, the darkness comprehended it not. The Son of Man was greeted with such a reception as an ignorant and ungrateful world ever gives to its wisest teachers and best benefactors. He came unto his own, and his own received him not The gentleness of his manners, the blamelcssness of his life, the richness of his benefactions, and the surpassing purity and sublimity of his doctrines ; — all this only served to draw down upon him the envious hatred of a bigoted priesthood and the blind fury of a deluded people. The malice of his enemies was only satisfied when it had imbrued its guilty hands in his innocent blood. This is the heir, said these wicked husbandmen, let us kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours.

But God oftentimes causeth the wrath of man to praise him, and he oftentimes employeth the opposition of the wicked as a means of accomplishing purposes which they vainly would firustrate. So it came to pass. The death of Christ upon the cross proved the eternal salvation of a lost world. This result he had himself foretold. " Verily I say unto you, except a com of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone ; but if it die it bringeth forth much firuit And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me."

Little did Jewish priests and heathen rulers think, that in nailing the unoffending object of their envy to the cross, they were tal^ng the most effectual means of spreading hia dreaded doctrines, and of procuring their own speedy and

INTRODXJCTIOH. ^ix

fearful overthrow ! Ldtde did they imagine, that in shedding his blood, they were planting that com of wheat which shonld fill a famishing world with the bread of spiritual life ! Yet so the determinate council and foreknowledge of Gk>d had appointed. The corn of wheat died, and the death of Jesus proved the life of his people. The Saviour of sinners was lifted up on the cross, and the simple tale of his suff^- ings has such an attractive power over the human heart, that millions, in every age and clime, have been drawn by it to that cross's foot

God suffered not his Holy One to see conruption. He burst the cerements of death. He confirmed the hearts of his weeping and bewildered discifdes, and directed them to pub* lish his religion to all nations. He graciously assured them of the perpetual guidance and indwelling of the Spirit — and then entering within the veil, he appeared before the Father^ as the ever-living High Priest of his peculiar people.

When Jesus was put to death, his enemies fondly sup>> posed that spiritual religion would die with him. But through the mercy and appointment of God it turned out otherwise. His doctrines still lived in the hearts of his followers. The infant Church, indeed, presented to the eye of man the insignificance of that least of seeds to which its Founder had compared it : but like the mustard-seed, it pos* sessed, in its inward life, such a principle of growth, as caused it, within the lifetime of its first preachers, to overshadow all lands with its fruitful branches.

The number of believers, convened at the election of Matthias in the place ot the unworthy Judas, was only ^ about a hundred and twenty f but so soon as the day of Pentecost, " there were added unto them about three thousand souls*'' Shortly after this Peter addressed an immense concourse in the porch of Solomon, and we are told that " many of them which heard the word, believed ; and the number of die men was about five thousand." Alarmed at the rapid progiess of the new fsdth, the jniests and their adherents sought to aErott it by force, but as ecmunoaly happens, tfiis only increased tht