A Portraiture of Quakerism Volume Ii Part 6

CHAP. IV.

_The spirit of G.o.d which has been thus given to man in different degrees, was given him as a spiritual teacher, or guide, in his spiritual concerns--It performs this office, the Quakers say, by internal monitions--Sentiments of Taylor--and of Monro--and, if encouraged, it teaches even by the external objects of the creation--William Wordsworth._

The Quakers believe that the spirit of G.o.d, which has been thus given to man in different degrees or measures, and without which it is impossible to know spiritual things, or even to understand the divine writings spiritually, or to be a.s.sured of their divine origin, was given to him, among other purposes, as a teacher of good and evil, or to serve him as a guide in his spiritual concerns. By this the Quakers mean, that if any man will give himself up to the directions of the spiritual principle that resides within him, he will attain a knowledge sufficient to enable him to discover the path of his duty both to G.o.d and his fellow-man.

That the spirit of G.o.d was given to man as a spiritual instructor, the Quakers conceive to be plain, from a number of pa.s.sages, which are to be found in the sacred writings.

They say, in the first place, that it was the language of the holy men of old. [16] "I said, says Elihu, days should speak, and mult.i.tude of years should teach wisdom. But there is a spirit (or the spirit itself is) in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth him understanding." The Levites are found also making an acknowledgment to G.o.d; [17] "That he gave also their forefathers his good spirit to instruct them." The Psalms of David are also full of the same language, such as of [18] "Shew me thy ways, O Lord; lead me in the truth." [19] "I know, says Jeremiah, that the way of man is not in himself. It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps." The martyr Stephen acknowledges the teachings of the spirit, both in his own time and in that of his ancestors. [20] "Ye stiff-necked, and uncirc.u.mcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the holy spirit. As your fathers did, so do ye." The Quakers also conceive it to be a doctrine of the gospel. Jesus himself said, [21] "No man can come to me except the Father, which sent me, draw him--It is written in the prophets, they shall all be taught of G.o.d."

[22]St. John says, "That was the true light, (namely, the word or spirit) which lighteth every man that cometh into the world." St. Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians, a.s.serts, [23]that "the manifestation of the spirit is given to every man to profit withal."

And, in his letter to t.i.tus, he a.s.serts the same thing, though in different words: [24] "For the grace of G.o.d, says he, which bringeth salvation, hath appeared unto all men."

[Footnote 16: Job 32. 7.]

[Footnote 17: Nehemiah 9. 20.]

[Footnote 18: Psalm 25. 4.]

[Footnote 19: Jeremiah 10. 23.]

[Footnote 20: Acts 7. 51.]

[Footnote 21: John 6.44.45]

[Footnote 22: John 1. 9.]

[Footnote 23: i Cor. 12. 7.]

[Footnote 24: t.i.tus 2. 11.]

The spirit of G.o.d, which has been thus given to man as a spiritual guide, is considered by the Quakers as teaching him in various ways. It inspires him with good thoughts. It prompts him to good offices. It checks him in his way to evil. It reproves him while in the act of committing it.

The learned Jeremy Taylor was of the same opinion. "The spirit of grace, says he, is the spirit of wisdom, and teaches us by secret inspirations, by proper arguments, by actual persuasions, by personal applications, by effects and energies."

This office of the spirit is beautifully described by Monro, a divine of the established church, in his just measures of the pious inst.i.tutions of youth, "The holy spirit, says he, speaks inwardly and immediately to the soul. For G.o.d is a spirit. The soul is a spirit; and they converse with one another in spirit, not by words, but by spiritual notices; which, however, are more intelligible than the most eloquent strains in the world. G.o.d makes himself to be heard by the soul by inward motions, which it perceives and comprehends proportionably as it is voided and emptied of earthly ideas. And the more the faculties of the soul cease their own operations, so much the more sensible and intelligible are the motions of G.o.d to it. These immediate communications from G.o.d with the souls of men are denied and derided by a great many. But that the father of spirits should have no converse with our spirits, but by the intervention only of outward and foreign objects, may justly seem strange, especially when we are so often told in holy scripture, that we are the temples of the holy Ghost, and that G.o.d dwelleth in all good men."

But this spirit is considered by the Quakers not only as teaching by inward breathings, as it were, made immediately and directly upon the heart without the intervention of outward circ.u.mstances, but as making the material objects of the Universe, and many of the occurrences of life, if it be properly attended to, subservient to the instruction of man; and that it enlarges the sphere of his instruction in this manner, in proportion as it is received and encouraged. Thus the man, who is attentive to these divine notices, sees the animal, the vegetable, and the planetary world, with spiritual eyes. He cannot stir abroad, but he is taught in his own feelings, without any motion of his will, some lesson for his spiritual advantage; or he perceives so vitally some of the attributes of the divine being, that he is called upon to offer some spiritual incense to his maker. If the lamb frolics and gambols in his presence as he walks along, he may be made spiritually to see the beauty and happiness of innocence. If he finds the stately oak laid prostrate by the wind, he may be spiritually taught to discern the emptiness of human power; while the same spirit may teach him inwardly the advantage of humility, when he looks at the little hawthorn which has survived the storm. When he sees the change and the fall of the autumnal leaf, he may be spiritually admonished of his own change and dissolution, and of the necessity of a holy life. Thus the spirit of G.o.d may teach men by outward objects and occurrences in the world; but where this spirit is away, or rather where it is not attended to, no such lesson can be taught. Natural objects of themselves can excite only natural ideas: and the natural man, looking at them, can derive only natural pleasure, or draw natural conclusions from them. In looking at the Sun, he may be pleased with its warmth, and antic.i.p.ate its advantages to the vegetable world. In plucking and examining a flower, he may be struck with its beauty, its mechanism, and its fragrant smell.

In observing the b.u.t.terfly, as it wings its way before him, he may smile at its short journeys from place to place, and admire the splendour upon its wings. But the beauty of Creation is dead to him, as far as it depends upon connecting it spiritually with the character of G.o.d. For no spiritual impression can arise from any natural objects, but through the intervention of the spirit of G.o.d.

William Wordsworth, in his instructive poems, has described this teaching by external objects in consequence of impressions from a higher power, as differing from any teaching by books or the human understanding, and as arising without any motion of the will of man, in so beautiful and simple a manner, that I cannot do otherwise than make an extract from them in this place. Lively as the poem is, to which I allude, I conceive it will not lower the dignity of the subject. It is called Expostulation and Reply, and is as follows:[25]

Why, William, on that old gray stone, Thus for the length of half a day, Why, William, sit you thus alone, And dream your time away?

Where are your books? that light bequeath'd To beings, else forlorn and blind, Up! Up! and drink the spirit breath'd From dead men to their kind.

You look round on your mother earth, As if she for no purpose bore you, As if you were her first-born birth, And none had liv'd before you!

One morning thus by Esthwaite lake, When life was sweet, I knew not why, To me my good friend Matthew spake, And that I made reply:

The eye it cannot choose but see.

We cannot bid the ear be still; Our bodies feel where'er they be, Against or with our will.

Nor less I deem that there are powers, Which of themselves our minds impress, That we can feed this mind of ours In a wise pa.s.siveness.

Think you,'mid all this mighty sum Of things for ever speaking, That nothing of itself will come, But we must still be seeking?

Then ask not wherefore, here, alone, Conversing as I may, I sit upon this old gray stone, And dream my time away?

[Footnote 25: See Lyrical Ballads, Vol. 1. p. 1.]

CHAP. V

_This spirit was not only given to man as a teacher, but as a primary and infallible guide--Hence the Scriptures are a subordinate or secondary guide--Quakers, however, do not undervalue them on this account--Their opinion concerning them._

The spirit of G.o.d, which we have seen to be thus given to men as a spiritual teacher, and to act in the ways described, the Quakers usually distinguish by the epithets of primary and infallible. But they have made another distinction with respect to the character of this spirit; for they have p.r.o.nounced it to be the only infallible guide to men in their spiritual concerns. From this latter declaration the reader will naturally conclude, that the scriptures, which are the outward teachers of men, must be viewed by the Quakers in a secondary light. This conclusion has indeed been adopted as a proposition in the Quaker theology; or, in other words, it is a doctrine of the society, that the spirit of G.o.d is the primary and only infallible, and the scriptures but a subordinate or secondary guide.

This proposition the Quakers usually make out in the following manner:

It is, in the first place, admitted by all Christians, that the scriptures were given by inspiration, or that those who originally delivered or wrote the several parts of them, gave them forth by means of that spirit, which was given to them by G.o.d. Now in the same manner as streams, or rivulets of water, are subordinate to the fountains which produce them; so those streams or rivulets of light must be subordinate to the great light from whence they originally sprung. "We cannot, says Barclay, call the scriptures the princ.i.p.al fountain of all truth and knowledge, nor yet the first adequate rule of faith and manners; because the princ.i.p.al fountain of truth must be the truth itself, that is, whose certainty and authority depend not upon another."

The scriptures are subordinate or secondary, again, in other points of view. First, because, though they are placed before us, we can only know or understand them by the testimony of the spirit. Secondly, because there is no virtue or power in them of themselves, but in the spirit from whence they came.

They are, again, but a secondary guide; because "that, says Barclay, cannot be the only and princ.i.p.al guide, which doth not universally reach every individual that needeth it." But the scriptures do not teach deaf persons, nor children, nor idiots, nor an immense number of people, more than half the Globe, who never yet saw or heard of them. These, therefore, if they are to be saved like others, must have a different or a more universal rule to guide them, or be taught from another source.

They are only a secondary guide, again, for another reason. It is an acknowledged axiom among Christians, that the spirit of G.o.d is a perfect spirit, and that it can never err. But the scriptures are neither perfect of themselves as a collection, nor are they perfect in their verbal parts. Many of them have been lost. Concerning those which have survived, there have been great disputes. Certain parts of these, which one Christian council received in the early times of the church, were rejected as not canonical by another. Add to this, that none of the originals are extant. And of the copies, some have suffered by transcription, others by translation, and others by wilful mutilation, to support human notions of religion; so that there are various readings of the same pa.s.sage, and various views of the same thing. "Now what, says Barclay, would become of Christians, if they had not received that spirit and those spiritual senses, by which they know how to discover the true from the false? It is the privilege of Christ's sheep, indeed, that they hear his voice, and refuse that of the stranger; which, privilege being taken away, we are left a prey to all manner of wolves."

The scriptures, therefore, in consequence of the state in which they have come down to us, cannot, the Quakers say, be considered to be a guide as entirely perfect as the internal testimony of their great author, the spirit of G.o.d.

But though the Quakers have thought it right, in submitting their religious creed to the world on this subject, to be so guarded in the wording of it as to make the distinction described, they are far from undervaluing the scriptures on that account. They believe, on the other hand, whatever mutilations they may have suffered, that they contain sufficient to guide men in belief and practice; and that all internal emotions, which are contrary to the declaration of these, are wholly inadmissible. "Moreover, says Barclay, because the scriptures are commonly acknowledged by all to have been written by the dictates of the holy spirit, and that the errors, which may be supposed by the injury of time to have slipt in, are not such but there is a sufficient clear testimony left to all the essentials of the Christian faith, we do look upon them as the only fit outward judge of controversies among Christians, and that whatsoever doctrine is contrary to their testimony, may therefore justly be rejected as false."

The Quakers believe also, that as G.o.d gave a portion of his spirit to man to a.s.sist him inwardly, so he gave the holy scriptures to a.s.sist him outwardly in his spiritual concerns. Hence the latter, coming by inspiration, are the most precious of all books that ever were written, and the best outward guide. And hence the things contained in them, ought to be read, and, as far as possible, fulfilled.

They believe, with the apostle Paul, that the scriptures are highly useful, "so that, through patience and comfort of them, they may have hope; and also that they are profitable for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness:" that in the same manner as land, highly prepared and dressed by the husbandman, becomes fit for the reception and for the promotion of the growth of the seed that is to be placed in it, so the scriptures turn the attention of man towards G.o.d, and by means of the exhortations, reproofs, promises, and threatenings, contained in them, prepare the mind for the reception and growth of the seed of the Holy Spirit.

They believe, again, that the same scriptures show more of the particulars of G.o.d's will with respect to man, and of the scheme of the Gospel-dispensation, than any ordinary portion of his spirit, as usually given to man, would have enabled him to discover. They discover that [26] "the wages of sin is death, but the gift of G.o.d is eternal life through Jesus Christ:" [27] "That Jesus Christ was set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past through the forbearance of G.o.d;" [28]that "he tasted death for every man;" that he [29]was "delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification;"

[30]that "he is set down at the right hand of the throne of G.o.d;"

[31] "and ever liveth to make intercession for us; and, that he is the substance of all the types and figures under the Levitical priesthood, [32] being the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth."

[Footnote 26: Rom. 6. 23.]

[Footnote 27: Rom. 3. 25.]

[Footnote 28: Heb. 2. 9.]