XVI. 146 under foot, and entered the strongest protest against CHAP. the forms of a hierarchy. It was the principle for which Socrates died and Plato suffered; and now that Fox went forth to proclaim it among the people, he was every where resisted with angry vehemence, and priests and professors, magistrates and people, swelled Fox, 73. like the raging waves of the sea. At the Lancaster sessions forty priests appeared against him at once. To the ambitious Presbyterians, it seemed as if hell were broke loose; and Fox, imprisoned and threatened with the gallows, still rebuked their bitterness as "exceeding rude and devilish," resisting and overcoming n. 145, pride with unbending stubbornness. Possessed of vast ideas which he could not trace to their origin, a mystery to himself, like Cromwell and so many others who have exercised vast influence on society, he believed himself the special ward of a favoring Providence, and his doctrine the spontaneous expression of irresistible, intuitive truth. Nothing could daunt his enthusiasm. Cast into jail among felons, he claimed of the public tribunals a release only to continue his exertions; and as he rode about the country, the seed of God sparkled b. 290, about him like innumerable sparks of fire. If cruelly beaten, or set in the stocks, or ridiculed as mad, he still proclaimed the oracles of the voice within him, and rapidly gained adherents among the country people. If driven from the church, he spoke in the open air; forced from the shelter of the humble alehouse, he slept without fear under a haystack, or watched among the furze. His fame increased; crowds gathered, like flocks of pigeons, to hear him. His frame in prayer is described as the most awful, living and reverent ever felt or seen; and his vigorous understanding, soon disciplined by clear convictions to natural dialectics, made 291. 1 XVI. CHAP. him powerful in the public discussions to which he defied the world. A true witness, writing from knowledge, and not report, declares that, by night and by day, by sea and by land, in every emergency of the nearest and most exercising nature, he was always in Fhis place, and always a match for every service and occasion. By degrees "the hypocrites" feared to dispute with him; and the simplicity of his principle found such ready entrance among the people, that the priests trembled and scud as he drew near; "so that it was a dreadful thing to them, when it was told them, The man in leathern breeches is come."" 100, 107, 103. Fox,296. 301. xxvii. 6 The converts to his doctrine were chiefly among the yeomanry; and Quakers were compared to the butterflies Barclay, that live in fells. It is the boast of Barclay, that the simplicity of truth was restored by weak instruments, Fox, and Penn exults that the message came without suspicion of human wisdom. It was wonderful to witness the energy and the unity of mind and character which the strong perception of speculative truth imparted to the most illiterate mechanics; they delivered the oracles of conscience with fearless freedom and natural eloquence; and with happy and unconscious sagacity, spontaneously developed the system of moral truth, which, as they believed, existed as an incorruptible seed in every soul. Ib. xx. Bewel, Every human being was embraced within the sphere of their benevolence. George Fox did not fail, by 570. letter, to catechize Innocent XI. Ploughmen and milkmaids, becoming itinerant preachers, sounded the alarm throughout the world, and appealed to the consciences of Puritans and Cavaliers, of the Pope and the Grand Turk, of the negro and the savage. The plans of the Quakers designed no less than the establishment XVI. of a universal religion; their apostles made their way to CHAP. Rome and Jerusalem, to New England and Egypt; and some were even moved to go towards China and Japan, Fox,351. and in search of the unknown realms of Prester John. The rise of the people called Quakers is one of the memorable events in the history of man. It marks the moment when intellectual freedom was claimed unconditionally by the people as an inalienable birthright. To the masses in that age all reflection on politics and morals presented itself under a theological form. The Quaker doctrine is philosophy, summoned from the cloister, the college, and the saloon, and planted among the most despised of the people. As poetry is older than critics, so philosophy is older than metaphysicians. The mysterious question of the purpose of our being is always before us and within us; and the little child, as it begins to prattle, makes inquiries which the pride of learning cannot solve. The method of the solution adopted by the Quakers, was the natural consequence of the origin of their sect. The mind of George Fox had the highest systematic sagacity; and his doctrine, developed and rendered illustrious by Barclay and Penn, was distinguished by its simplicity and unity. The Quaker has but one word, THE INNER LIGHT, the voice of God in the soul. That light is a reality, and therefore in its freedom the highest revelation of truth; it is kindred with the Spirit 7-9, 15. of God, and therefore merits dominion as the guide to virtue; it shines in every man's breast, and therefore 5, 6, 15joins the whole human race in the unity of equal rights. Intellectual freedom, the supremacy of mind, universal enfranchisement,-these three points include the whole of Quakerism, as far as it belongs to civil history. Quakerism rests on the reality of the Inner Light, Barclay Prop. 1, 2,3,10 14,4. XVI. CHAP. and its method of inquiry is absolute freedom applied to consciousness. The revelation of truth is immediate. It springs neither from tradition nor from the senses, but directly from the mind. No man comes to Barclay. the knowledge of God but by the Spirit. "Each person," says Penn, "knows God from 129. an infallible Penn, i demonstration in himself, and not on the slender grounds of men's lo here interpretations, or lo there."— "The instinct of a Deity is so natural to man, that he can no more be without it, and be, than he can be it. 140. Without the most essential part of himself." As the eye opens, light enters; and the mind, as it looks in upon itself, receives moral truth by intuition. Others have sought wisdom by consulting the outward world, and, confounding consciousness with reflection, have trusted solely to the senses for the materials of thought; the Quaker, placing no dependence on the world of the senses, calls the soul home from its wanderings through the mazes of tradition and the wonders of the visible universe, bidding the vagrant sit down by its own fires to read the divine inscription on the heart. "Some seek truth in books, some in learned men, but what they seek for is in themselves."-"Man is an epitome of the world, and to be learned in it, we have only to read ourselves well." Penn, 1. 354. Thus the method of the Quaker coincided with that of Descartes and his disciples, who founded their system on consciousness, and made the human mind the point of departure in philosophy. But Descartes plunged immediately into the confusion of hypothesis, drifting to sea to be wrecked among the barren waves of ontological speculation; and even Leibnitz, confident in his genius and learning, lost his way among the monads of creation and the preëstab XVI. lished harmonies in this best of all possible worlds; the CHAP. illiterate Quaker adhered strictly to his method; like the timid navigators of old time, who carefully kept near the shore, he never ventured to sea except with the certain guidance of the cynosure in the heart. Penn, 1. He was consistent, for he set no value on learning 16.11.26. acquired in any other way. Tradition cannot enjoin a ceremony, still less establish a doctrine; historical faith is as the old heavens that are to be wrapped up as a scroll. 130. Ib. ii. Barclay, 30. 1, 2, 133. The constant standard of truth and goodness, says William Penn, is God in the conscience, and liberty of conscience is therefore the most sacred right, and the Penn, fi. only avenue to religion. To restrain it is an invasion of the divine prerogative. It robs man of the use of the 140, 137. instinct of a Deity. To take away the great charter of 130, 131. freedom of conscience is to prevent the progress of society; or rather, as the beneficent course of Providence cannot be checked, it is in men of the present generation but knotting a whipcord to lash their own posterity. The selfishness of bigotry is the same in every age; the persecutors of to-day do not differ from those who inflamed the people of Athens to demand the death of Socrates. And the Quakers agreed with the philosophers of old, that freedom of mind, applied to the contemplation of God, is the end of life. But the Quaker asked for conscience more than security against penal legislation. He proclaimed an insurrection against every form of authority over conscience; he resisted every attempt at the slavish subjection of the understanding. He had no reverence for the decrees of a university, a convocation, or a synod; no fear of maledictions from the Vatican. Nor was this all The Quaker denied the value of all learning, i. 277. |