William Penn Lecture
1945
The Light Within as Redemptive Power
Delivered at
Arch Street Meeting House
Philadelphia
by
Cecil E. Hinshaw
President, William Penn College
The Nature of Man
A realistic view of human nature must recognize
that we have within us strong and powerful drives toward
both altruism and selfishness. Any picture of man as entirely
a creature of either of these two urges is true neither to
our own experience nor to the best thought of the greatest
minds. The relation of these two conflicting parts of our
being constitutes a profound dilemma for ethics and religion.
Because of the inner tension caused by this
problem, Paul cried out in distress, "For the good which I would I
do not; but the evil which I would not, that I
practice."1 It was this same inner conflict between sin and purity
which puzzled Augustine when he analyzed himself. Perplexed,
he said, "The mind commands the mind, its own self, to
will and yet it doth not. Whence this monstrousness' And
to what end?"2 As a youth, George Fox saw within himself
what he termed "two pleadings." Each of these, he declared,
strove within him for mastery. Isaac Penington was
likewise conscious of this moral and spiritual warfare. Speaking
of Satan and God as two opposing kings, he said, "Man is
the land where these two kings fight ... and where the fight
is once begun between these, there is no quietness in
that land till one of these be
dispossessed."3
The modern attempt to understand man's nature
has tended to obscure this fact of moral dualism. Except
for Mary Baker Eddy and a few others whose approach is
similar to hers, our modern Christian teaching has not
actually denied the existence of the conflict between sin
and goodness, but we have accomplished almost the same
result as a denial by a preponderance of emphasis upon the
good that is in man. Educational theories have hesitated even
to recognize the fact of sin, fearing that such a
negative approach may itself produce wrong conduct. On the
other hand, we are told that we can produce the desired results
in moral living by carefully building up the good that is in
the child. This so-called positive emphasis seeks to train a
child to grow naturally into a good person, never experiencing
the kind of moral conflict so vividly described by Paul,
Augustine, Fox and Penington.
This supposedly optimistic view of human nature
is actually either hopelessly visionary, denying entirely
the reality of sin, or it is dangerously pessimistic. The
pessimism is clearly seen when we realize that fear of failure is the
only good reason for minimizing or dodging the fact of
moral conflict. If we are afraid for people to know
themselves accurately, to see clearly both the good and bad that is
in them, it must be because we fear that such knowledge
will increase the prospect of moral failure. We can be
both realistic and truly optimistic if we see that, although
every man is something of a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, there
still can be genuine victory for our higher selves over our
lower selves.
Instead of fearing this moral conflict, we ought
to recognize it as the source of intellectual, moral and
religious progress. The proverb "Necessity is the mother of
invention" describes a basic pattern of human behavior - mental
activity and strengthened character are our responses to
needs, problems, which cannot be solved by habitual
responses. Great men have come out of periods of tragedy and
struggle because such outer turmoil heightens the inward
tensions that are basic to the development of character and
insight. Jeremiah's sufferings and his consequent greatness
were the direct result of the decadence of his nation. The
great spirit that moves through second Isaiah is the refined
product of a humiliating captivity. Augustine's own personal
moral problem and the death of the Roman Empire are
the background of a magnificent life. It took the Crusades
and their accompanying suffering and disruption to produce
a Francis of Assisi. Fox and the early Quakers came out
of troubled times in England. Though we seek to
escape problems and troubles, both within and without us,
the struggle they produce is actually the prerequisite of
growth; even the effort of the oyster to deal with an irritating
object introduced into the shell produces a lustrous pearl. "All
these troubles were good for me,"4 Fox observed as he looked
back in retrospect upon the problems of his youth,
temptations so great that he almost despaired of ever conquering them.
There is no easy path to sainthood. Men do not
grow into it unconsciously, nor do they achieve it without
inner tension. The courageous recognition of this fact is
the beginning of spiritual maturity. The selfishness basic to
all sin is a present fact; you and I do have deep within us
the seeds of sin. We have seen the fruition of those seeds in
our own pride and self-centeredness. No veneering of this
sin by respectable courtesies and polite mannerisms can
change what we know is present within us. Like Paul and
Augustine, we have experienced moral failures; if we are honest,
we must confess that Paul speaks for us, too, when he
says, "all have sinned and come short of the glory of
God."5 If we are to be adequate in our religious faith and experience
for the needs of our troubled world, we must take into
account this inner tension caused by the conflict of these
two opposing tendencies within us.
Darkness and Light
The early Quakers, in order to express this
moral dualism which they saw in themselves and in
others, frequently used the contrasting terms, darkness
and light. In describing his early ministry, George Fox wrote, "I
was sent to turn people from the darkness to the
Light."6 The "children of Light" knew that they had been redeemed
from sin and its power, and that conviction and experience
was their message. They had experienced the moral
tensions which were native to Puritanism, and they had found
an answer to them. That answer is the keynote of
early Quakerism. Fox expressed it in classic words, "I saw,
also, that there was an ocean of darkness and death; but
an infinite ocean of light and love, which flowed over the
ocean of darkness."7
Without question, the Light within is, in early Quakerism, that which William Penn called "the
first principle." Any hesitancy to accept it as such stems
either from a failure to study adequately the writings produced
by early Friends or from a profound misunderstanding of
what the Light within meant to them. The cornerstone of
their faith was the belief that Christ did lead and guide them
out of darkness into the glorious light of God's perfect love
and power. Out of this experience of the redemptive power
of the Light came their message of victory over the forces of
all unrighteousness.
The Light within was equated by them with
Christ. Instead of a vague, impersonal spirit, they believed that
Light to be the eternal Christ who had been manifested
perfectly in the historical Jesus and who continued to dwell in
the hearts of his followers. "Christ is come and doth dwell
and reign in the hearts of His people,"8
Fox declared in refuting those who believed that Christ would return in physical
form at some future time. The words Light and
Christ are so often linked together that they should be recognized
as synonymous terms for the early Friends. They
genuinely believed that Christ, the same power and spirit which
was in Jesus, had taken up His abode in them.
Instead of claiming that they had discovered
anything new in Christianity, the Quakers insisted that the
principle of the Light had been accepted by Christians of all ages.
To support this contention, the Quaker scholar, Robert
Barclay, in his "Apology for the True Christian Divinity," gave
many quotations from Church Fathers to show that the
principle of the Light was an essential part of the Christian
tradition. Nor were the Quakers the only ones in their own time
who proclaimed the primacy of the Light. Even before the time
of Fox and continuing after the birth of Quakerism, there
was a group among the Puritans who taught the same
central truth of the mystical light of Christ. These men, known
as the Cambridge Platonists, insisted that Christ became
a reality only as he was personally experienced in the heart
of man. Everard of Cambridge wrote: "He lives within
us spiritually, so that all which is known of Him in the
letter and historically is truly done and acted in our own
souls."9 Even the Westminster Assembly of Presbyterian
divines professed their belief that Christ is an inner reality,
spiritual in nature. The uniqueness of early Friends lies not so
much in the teaching of a divine Light within man as it does in
the work and power that can be accomplished by that Light.
In our own day, however, we have attempted to put
the early Quaker teaching of the Light within on a
philosophical basis. We have placed this belief in a logical and
philosophical framework that agrees with our own thinking. This
has resulted in a large degree of failure to understand the
true contribution that early Friends made. Nor has it enabled
us to understand accurately what the Light meant to them.
A better way to investigate the meaning to Fox and
his followers of the Light within may be to consider the
practical function of the Light. Most of Quakerism, especially in
its earliest period, tended to be unsystematic in its
intellectual formulations. The theology of the movement was, to a
very great extent, the theology of the times. George Fox,
especially, is not the kind of man who can be understood when
placed in a framework primarily philosophical and logical. He
lived experimentally and intuitively. Therefore the meaning to
him of the Light within must be found in the work of that Light.
Such an approach to the study of the meaning of
the Light within is best made through an investigation of
the meaning of the term, darkness, which is the opposite of
the term, light. As a matter of fact, any kind of light acquires
its meaning and significance by contrast with its opposite.
The light of the sun is valued by us more highly because of
those times when we have not had it. A few years ago the
New England hurricane created great havoc and
destruction, throwing many cities into total darkness. That night
of terrifying wind and shrieking sirens of fire engines
remains in my memory as a vivid experience of what darkness
can be. The absence of light taught me an unforgettable
lesson on the value and function of light.
You and I are more receptive to a picture of light
than to words about darkness. By reminding ourselves of all
the light we can see, we hope to avoid the unpleasantness of
a realistic view of a sinning world. Even though we have
to see clouds sometimes, our emphasis is upon the silver
lining. So it is that when we have looked at early Quakerism
through the rosy lenses of our modern world-view, we have
gladly seen it as a picture of triumphant light. We have
hurried past the words about an ocean of darkness to the
welcome metaphor of an ocean of light. Thus we have often failed
to evaluate accurately or to understand the message of Fox -
a message which can be grasped only by a full
understanding of the darkness out of which he came.
"I had been brought through the very ocean of
darkness and death," declared Fox, "and through and over the
power of Satan, by the eternal, glorious power of Christ;
even through that darkness was I brought which covered over
all the world, and which chained down all and shut up all
in death."10 When one reads the Journal carefully, the
nature of this darkness is clearly seen to be moral and
spiritual. From priest to priest he went, seeking in vain an answer
to his problem, which he defined as "the ground of
despair and temptations."11 Reared in a Puritan environment,
filled with the pessimistic teachings of a faith that was
obsessed by the sin it believed to be unconquerable in this life,
Fox could see no way out of the darkness. Evidence of the
extent of his problem are his words of despair: "I could
not believe that I should ever overcome
I was so
tempted."12 Other people were quite at ease and contented to remain in
the condition of moral and spiritual defeat, which was
misery to him. "They loved that which I would have been rid
of,"13 he complained. Underneath the cloak of piety -
respectable forms of godliness so apparent everywhere in
Puritan England - the young seeker clearly discerned the
selfishness, pride, and lust that yet ruled the hearts of men,
including the priests of the steeplehouses.
This analysis of seventeenth century England as
a nation in moral and spiritual darkness was echoed by
Isaac Penington and other early Friends. Penington's
description must have been like a knife to the professing Christians
to whom he spoke: "There is pollution, there is filth, there
is deceit, there are high-mindedness, self-conceitedness,
and love of the world, and worldly vanities, and many other
evils to be found in the hearts of those that go for
Christians; and purity of heart
is not
known."14 Even more stinging were the accusations of Fox: "And are not all
professors, and sects of people, such as have the form but are
without the power of godliness? Are not people still covetous,
and earthly minded, and given to the world, and proud and
vain, even such as profess religion, and to be a separated
people? Are not professors as covetous and proud as such as do
not profess?"15
In his prison epistle, No Cross, No
Crown, William Penn became quite explicit in describing the sins of his day
and comparing them with the standards of Jesus, who, he
said, "came not to consecrate a way to the eternal rest,
through gold, and silver, ribbons, laces, prints, perfumes,
costly clothes, curious trims, exact dresses, rich jewels,
pleasant recreations, plays, treats, balls, masques, revels,
romances, love-songs, and the like pastimes of the
world."16 The conclusion is obvious that early Quakers saw the moral
and spiritual condition of England as a state of apostasy
and darkness.
As a study of the moral and spiritual darkness
of seventeenth century England gives new meaning to the
idea of the Light in early Quakerism, so may a consideration
of the darkness of our age make our problem clearer. Until
the tragedy of this war came upon us, we endeavored to
remain optimistic about our times. Even through the first
World War and later in the crash of our financial structure,
we kept telling ourselves that our troubles were only
temporary and we would soon emerge into the glorious dawn of
the new day of progress and light where war would be
outlawed and breadlines would exist no more. Our dream has
been shattered for most of us today, but there are still some
who, unwilling to face the truth of the magnitude of
the catastrophe that has engulfed us, bravely whistle in
the darkness of our age about the wonderful material
advances that await us in the "world of tomorrow." A naive,
childlike faith in the fair words of the Atlantic Charter and in
the integrity of statesmen sustains them even when the
Atlantic Charter is repudiated by its makers.
Others of us begin to wonder whether it is the dawn
of a new day or the twilight of an era that is dying.
Spengler and Sorokin, prophets of the doom of western
civilization, were lightly cast aside not so long ago, but they take on
new significance to us now as we watch with foreboding
the drawing of peace plans. We wonder whether
Jeremiah's words may be applied to those who now forecast a
brave new world - "They have healed the hurt of the daughter
of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is
no peace."17 The seeds of racial, class and international
struggle now being sown all over the world can only produce a
new and more terrible harvest of sin and suffering. Though
our faith remains steadfast in the ultimate victory of love
over sin, we cannot but realize that an ocean of darkness
covers our world now.
If we could believe that our own Society of Friends
is not sharing in this decadence, our hope would be
greater. Small as we are in numbers, we could be a powerful
force either to check the decay of our culture or to build
firmly the foundation of a new age. Honesty compels us to
admit, however, that we are not qualified for such a mission.
Though the sins of the world are grievous, it is our own
weakness and impotence, our own lack of power and strength
which is our primary problem. Throughout the nation,
our meetings, remnants of a once powerful movement to
publish Truth throughout the world, struggle to keep from dying.
In pastoral meetings, a steadily weakening ministry too
often resorts to promotional schemes borrowed from commercialized churches to bolster the falling
attendance. Even though such methods may be based upon
questionable motives, we gladly announce that the result is an
increase in membership and attendance. When the novelty of
the attendance-building plan is worn off, we discreetly
keep silent about the subsequent drop in interest and
attendance. In spite of all our manmade attempts to build
institutional loyalty, yearly statistical reports are discouraging.
Other sections of American Quakerism report on a
similarly pessimistic note concerning membership and the
attendance at meetings for worship and business. The few bright
spots where meetings are virile and growing serve to show
even more clearly the weakness of our Society. Can it be that
we are dying?
Dimly aware of our weakness, we seek to find ways
to bolster our falling self-respect. We grasp at the straws
of praise which others toss to us, we remind ourselves of
our virtues and good deeds in all parts of the world, and
we recall the past glories of our Society. Underneath this
shallow optimism we know the stinging truth of charges that
our movement is suffering the same death which is falling
upon all Christendom like the soothing sleep of a freezing man.
In the last analysis, however, this darkness that
has settled upon Quakerism is the result of personal,
individual failure to live victoriously. If we could find within
ourselves the miracle of strength and power we need, we
could overcome the respectable lethargy of our meetings
and transform them into centers of light capable of
redeeming our world from its darkness. The surging power of
early Christianity could be ours today. God has not lessened
His desire to have men become channels for His redeeming
love and power. The Light of Christ could illuminate the
darkness of our sinful age. A modern Francis of Assisi could
even accomplish miracles with the rulers of this world. But
no such tidal wave of indescribable divine power and love
can break over our darkened world until we rise out of
our satisfied complacency and calm indifference.
As the very goodness and respectability of the
Puritans kept them from seeing that the Quakers were beyond
them in purity and love, so do our virtues and achievements
blind us to the dazzling brightness of the life to which Christ
calls us. We attend meetings for worship and we please
ourselves by self-given praise for our pure form of worship, but
we have not known in those times of worship the
soul-transforming power that results from utter obedience to
the invading love of Christ. We have been respectable
and praiseworthy in some of our moral standards, but we
have not been willing to let God speak to us on delicate
matters of habits of eating, types of amusements, use of our
time, and standards of dress and living. We mildly teach
and practice pacifism in relation to war between nations,
but the revolutionary implications of pacifism - the
complete substitution of love and unselfishness for hatred and
greed in our relations with all people - we have scarcely dared
to contemplate seriously as a way of life. Tested by
ordinary problems of human relationships in our meetings, we
have failed to demonstrate that we can even get along with
each other. We speak of equality for all men because of the
Light within, but we fail to give evidence that our words
have meaning. Satisfied with mediocrity, contented with
our comfortable plans for a secure future, pleased that our
sins are seemingly small and overlooked by others who
likewise do not desire complete purity, proud that we
occasionally deny ourselves in order to contribute to some good
cause, we continue to be weighty Friends and important people
in our communities, but we have not known the life and
power and spirit of those who have dared to be prophets of God.
As a watchdog will not let a herd remain in
contented indifference to danger, so does the Light of Christ
continually seek to puncture our proud complacency, refusing to let
us he entirely satisfied with sin or even a partial goodness.
In stubbornness we may oppose the pleading of the Light
and give ourselves over to the darkness that blankets our
age, but we can never cease to know that God still calls us to
the heritage of a Kingdom of light and power. Even
more fundamental than the fact of sin is the fact of our
relationship with God. This is the message of the story of Adam and
Eve. Man may sin and alienate himself from God, but he
can never erase his divine parentage. Eternal truth is written
in those words in Genesis: "And God created man in his
own image."18 It is the same truth which Jesus phrased
so perfectly in the parable of the prodigal son. Though
we wander far from home, waste our God-given heritage,
and surfeit ourselves in the sensual pleasures of this world, it
is still true that we belong to God, that we are divine in
our origin and divine in our possibilities. Augustine
expressed this kinship with God in classic words: "Thou madest us
for Thyself, and our heart is restless, until it repose in
Thee."19 Because man belongs to God, because eternity has
been written indelibly into his heart, his acceptance and
practice of sin, encouraged and abetted by a decadent culture,
can only result in a moral and spiritual tension of
increasing magnitude.
As men and women all over England gathered into bands of Seekers, trying to find a way out of the
darkness which bore so heavily upon them, so are men and
women all over the world today groping toward a release from
the darkness which encompasses our age. Paradoxically,
the greater the darkness, the greater is the yearning in the
hearts of men for the light to relieve that darkness. In the midst
of the frantic attempts of Christian institutions to stay
alive, the numbers increase of those who turn away from
the Church, sorrowfully seeking elsewhere the answer to
the dimly understood urgings of Christ within as He gently
leads them to the "well of water springing up into eternal
life."20 So it is that God calls us, ever unwilling to let us be
satisfied with even our half-goodness. The ocean of darkness is
grim and terrifying in its power and extent, but the ocean of
light, even Christ within, seeks to save and redeem us from
that darkness. The result is war within ourselves, a basic
conflict between selfishness and love. Unable to free ourselves
of the ideals and visions which a divine light has planted
within us, yet drawn inexorably toward sin, we find ourselves
faced with an impossible tension, a moral dualism, which
is profoundly disconcerting.
The Redemptive Power of the Light
The significance of the Light within for the
early Quakers is to be found in the practical solution it
brought to the moral and spiritual tension with which they
struggled. Other professing Christians of the time insisted with
the Puritans that there is no redemption from the power of
sin until death. Because they believed the physical body to be
a body of sin and death, they maintained, in the words of
the Westminster Shorter Catechism, "No mere man since
the fall is able in this life perfectly to keep the
commandments of God, but doth daily break them in thought, word
and deed."21 This meant that a basic moral dualism had to
be accepted as inevitable throughout all life. Sin and
selfishness cannot be defeated; we can hope to do no more than
curb them somewhat. This was the teaching that was given
to Fox as a youth and this was the problem that sent
him forth on a spiritual pilgrimage. The answer which came
to the young seeker was not so much a vision of new
knowledge of right and wrong as it was a dynamic to practice what
he already knew. Quakerism did not contribute a new code
of ethics, but it did demonstrate that those precepts could
be followed; it did succeed in fusing the common beliefs of
the sectarian groups of the time into a way of life that
was actually practiced. Everyone faces the moral and
ethical problem of doing what is believed to be right. George
Fox found a practical answer to the problem.
We tend today to interpret our movement as a philosophical quest far new knowledge of right and
wrong, and we are only secondarily concerned with power to
put that knowledge into operation. In fact, we often assume
that such a goal is impossible of achievement, that
complete control of our wills is beyond our reach. That our
pacifism is primarily an intellectual concept is demonstrated by
our failure in Civilian Public Service camps and in
ordinary business, social, and home life, to show consistently
the love and kindness, the patience and faith, which is the
very essence of true pacifism. Our problem is basically not
one of more knowledge of what to do - we already know
much more than we are practicing. We know we ought to
discipline our desires, our habits, and our thoughts, and we
know we ought not to hate or become angry. What we need is
power to put our present knowledge into actual and
consistent practice.
Once we have seen this dilemma that we face and
have become conscious of the moral dualism that explains
our predicament, we are ready to profit from the Truth
which Fox so zealously published. The Light within had not
only convinced them of sin and shown them a better way of life
- it had given them the victory over sin and self that
enabled them to live as they knew they ought to live. Power is a
key word in the early literature of the group, a word
repeated hundreds of times. Though the Quakers, like the
Puritans, saw sin in gigantic stature, they had fought their way
beyond this gloomy obsession with sin to a glorious realm of
light and victory. The very power of a victorious Christ
Himself had come to dwell in their hearts. So Penington
describes the true Church, a Church saturated with power: "This
is the Church now - a people gathered by the power from
on high, abiding in the power, acting in the power,
worshipping in the power, keeping in the holy order and government
of life ... by the power."22
Though they were amazingly consistent in their pacifism, these early Friends freely used the metaphor
of war to express this moral victory they believed they
had won. They called men to a spiritual instead of a
carnal warfare. Life for them involved a struggle of
cosmic proportions between the powers of darkness and sin, a
fight waged with man as the battlefield. A typical description
of this warfare is found in these words of Fox: "Christ came
to bruise the serpent's head, and destroy the devil and
his works, and to finish transgression, and to make an end
of sin, and to bring in everlasting righteousness into the
hearts of his people."23 A recent analysis of early Quakerism,
made by R. Newton Flew, concludes, "Victory is in the
air."24 The Light within had brought genuine redemption from
the powers of moral and spiritual darkness and all of life
had been transformed from a place of bondage to sin to a
realm of marvelous light and purity. With Paul, they cried
in triumph, "if any man is in Christ, he is a new
creation."25 In ecstasy, George Fox described this wonderful freedom
and victory: "Now I was come up in spirit through the
flaming sword, into the paradise of God. All things were new;
and all the creation gave unto me another smell than
before, beyond what words can utter. I knew nothing but
pureness, and innocency, and
righteousness."26
Are such words the product of nervous excitability
and lack of mental balance, or are they actually true
descriptions of the lives of these early Friends? Is their claim of a
complete victory over sin justified by facts? Were their lives models
of purity and holiness? Certainly no one answer applies
equally well to all of the followers of Fox, but the negative
judgment we must pass upon the "lunatic fringe" of the
movement does not detract from the solid worth of the great
majority of the Quakers of that period. Perhaps the best evidence
of the moral purity of the movement is to be found in
the accusation of their opponents that Quaker goodness
and piety was but a cloak to cover subversive activities! If
their enemies had to admit the high moral quality of the
movement and attack it as a pretense, then the Friends must
have been reasonably close to justifying the claims of George
Fox for them:
"And as concerning the Quakers, what do you say of them? You have seen their
conversation: few towns but some of them have been and
are amongst you. Do not they fear God? And do not they walk justly and truly among their
neighbours, and speak the truth, and do the truth in all
things, doing to all no otherwise than they would be
done unto? And are they not meek, and humble, and sober? And do not they take much wrong,
rather than give wrong to any? And do not they deny
the world and its pleasures, and forsake all
iniquity more than yourselves?"27
Except for the bitter enemies of the Quakers,
most historians have tended to render a quite favorable
verdict upon the moral and ethical character of the movement.
A century after the death of Fox, Clarkson could still
observe that Quakerism was "a most strict profession of
practical virtue under the direction of
Christianity."28 Perhaps the best known estimate of a modern writer is that of William
James, who said, "The Quaker religion which he [George
Fox] founded is something which it is impossible to
overpraise. In a day of shams, it was a religion of veracity rooted
in spiritual inwardness, and a return to something more
like the original gospel truth than men had ever known
in England."29
During the early days of Christianity, Stoic
philosophers were puzzled by the fact that ordinary men and women
who became Christians lived the life of self-discipline and
rigid moral purity that the Stoics believed was possible only
to philosophers who had carefully disciplined the body to
obey the dictates of the mind. The pagan philosophers, noble
as they were in their own morality, did not grasp the nature
of the moral and ethical dynamic which made early
Christianity a paean of triumph over sin. "Christ liveth in
me,"30 Paul declared, and John asserted the normal consequence of
the indwelling Christ to be a state of genuine purity:
"Whosoever abideth in him sinneth
not."31 Like the first Christians,
the early Quakers had found the secret of a victorious life,
a secret shared alike by people of low and high degree.
Penn, scholar and son of an admiral, was no greater in
spiritual power than Fox, the uncultured son of a weaver.
The advocates of religion universally claim that
religious faith aids in the development of morality, but the
absolutism of the Friends went much beyond such moral
relativisms. Instead of believing that religion merely improves the
moral nature by restraining sin somewhat, they insisted that
the radical surgery of the Light within had resulted in a
complete victory over sin and moral darkness. Christ was the
victor over the tempter, and sin had been completely defeated.
Concerning the Journal of John Woolman, Vida
Scudder writes, "Purity is the central word of the
Journal."32 The same observation may well be made of early Quaker
writings, especially those of Isaac Penington. Purity was almost
an obsession with him. The Christian life could leave no
place at all for any sin. The absoluteness of his demand
brooks no compromise: "Stay not in any part of the unclean
land, oh child of the pure life.
If thou wilt have the pure
life, both within and without, thou must part with the
corrupt life, both within and without."33
The redemption of the Light was no partial or relative change for him - Christ
within meant the defeat of all sin and impurity.
This insistence upon purity of life resulted in a
sharp controversy between Quakers and their contemporaries
on the question of how a man is justified, or accepted, by
God and given entrance to heaven. Others believed that
man himself can never be so perfectly righteous as to merit
the approval of God, and that the only way man,
necessarily and inevitably sinful, can gain access to heaven is
by receiving through faith the imputed righteousness of
Christ. Cloaked by this purity of Christ, yet still sinful in
nature, the Puritans taught that man is justified by God.
Against this teaching the early Friends unanimously and
vigorously set themselves. Fox insisted, "Men are not presented to
God while they do evil and before they are sanctified and
holy."34 And again he says, "Such as have Christ in them, have
the righteousness itself, without imputation, the end
of imputation, the righteousness of God itself, Christ
Jesus."35 In the thought of these early Friends, actual and
complete purity is essential. Redemption is not a forensic
process that takes place outside of a person. Though they
never denied the historical Jesus and his atoning work,
they insisted that such atonement was meaningless unless
it accomplished a perfect work in purifying and cleansing
the soul. Both the Quakers and their opponents agreed
that the atonement took away the guilt of sins, but the
Friends went to the extreme of insisting that redemption took
away the sins also.
In fairness to the Quakers, it should be stated that
sin was interpreted as conscious disobedience to what
was believed to be the will of God. Thus a man might fall
far short of the absolute perfection of God, but this lack of
perfect knowledge and wisdom need not keep him from
perfectly obeying whatever measure of truth is a present
possession. Even if a person is in actual error in judgment, his
action does not become sinful until he knows that his judgment
is wrong. Although Fox made some extreme claims of
absolute infallibility, other Friends were unwilling to join in
such assertions. They generally recognized the possibility of
errors in judgment, but they believed that God did not attach
guilt to a wrong that was done unintentionally.
The true content of the redemption claimed by
the "children of Light" is best seen in the concrete
descriptions that they gave of the pure life. Here the Quaker way of
life makes vivid and clear what a life free of sin meant to
them. The testimonies become luminous with meaning as they
are seen to be the result of a serious and sustained attempt
to follow the Light within to its logical conclusions in even
the smallest details of life. In fact, the actual extent of
this demand for absolute purity is best observed in
those seemingly insignificant and trivial actions which often
cost the early Friends so dearly. Although we find it
difficult always to apply the same logic to ourselves, we may
observe in the trials and sufferings of the despised sect that we
are studying a remarkable consistency in the attempt to
cast all known sin out of their lives.
The testimony against honoring men made the
Friends refuse to perform the commonly accepted courtesy of
taking off one's hat in the presence of a superior. Though
they were counted as rude and ill-mannered, they rigidly
refused to give such honor, because they believed honoring
men was sinful. The same reasoning was back of their
consistent use of the plain language. Small detail though it was,
they regarded it as of great importance simply because any
sin could not be tolerated by them.
The Quaker refusal of the oath is another example
of this unbending insistence upon purity. Even those
who approved of the principle found it difficult to
understand why a person would be willing to spend months or
even years in prison because of so small a matter. Such
well-intentioned people completely missed the mark
in understanding the movement. The moral absolutism of
early Quakerism, applied to the renunciation of all sin, great
or small, could not allow for the slightest deviation from
the standard of complete purity. This attitude of refusal
to compromise at all prompted Cromwell's famous
remark about the Friends: "Now I see there is a people risen that
I cannot win with gifts or honours, offices or places; but
all other sects and people I can."36
Even Puritans did not equal the stern simplicity of
life characteristic of the Quakers. Early in his youth
George Fox determined that he would not eat and drink for
pleasure but only for health and strength. Applied with a
thoroughness which approached the rigours of monasticism,
this principle made the slightest detail of habits of life
matters of major concern. Our modern tendency to order our
lives primarily to allow for enjoyment makes it difficult for us
to understand such an attitude. The difference between us
and our forebears may be easily observed in our reaction
to Penn's denunciation of the theater: "Their usual
entertainment is some stories fetched from the more
approved romances; some strange adventures, some
passionate amours, unkind refusals, grand impediments,
importunate addresses, miserable disappointments, wonderful
surprises, unexpected encounters, castles surprised, imprisoned
lovers rescued, and meetings of supposed dead ones; bloody
duels, languishing voices echoing from solitary graves,
overheard mournful complaints, deep-fetched sighs sent from
wild deserts, intrigues managed with unheard-of subtlety;
and whilst all things seem at the greatest distance, then
are dead people alive, enemies friends, despair turned
to enjoyment, and all their impossibilities
reconciled."37 Instead of such a way of spending time, Penn and the other
Quakers recommended hard work, attending religious
meetings, helping the needy, and serious study. To live "as ever in
his great Taskmaster's eye" was Milton's concept of
Puritanism, but even such sober morality hardly equaled Quaker ethics.
A more easily understood part of early
Quakerism's attempt to live without sin is to be found in the
peace testimony of the movement. Our modern objection to war
is usually based on our refusal to take human life. While
such an approach is harmonious with their principles,
the seventeenth century Friends did not at all make this
the basis of their objection to war. In fact, such a basis
for pacifism is scarcely to be found in early Quaker
writings. The true nature of their objection to war was rather in
the insistence that war cannot be fought without an
accompaniment of sinful, immoral attitudes. Because they
believed they lived above all sin, they repudiated war. This
principle is clearly seen in the classic answer Fox gave to those
who asked him to fight: "I told them I knew from whence
all wars arose, even from the lusts according to
James's doctrine; and that I lived in the virtue of that life and
power that took away the occasion of all
wars."38
The close correlation between sin and war may
further be observed in Barclay's statements on the subject.
In harmony with all early Friends, he taught that war is
normal under some circumstances for all those who still
include sin in their lives. Comparing them with the perfect
standard of pure Christianity, he says. "The present confessors of
the Christian name, who are yet in the mixture [of sin
and purity], and not in the patient suffering spirit, are not
yet fitted for this form of Christianity, and therefore cannot
be undefending themselves until they attain that
perfection. But for such whom Christ has brought hither, it is not
lawful to defend themselves by arms, but they ought over all
to trust to the Lord."39 Clearly, he expects that only those
who are purified of sin should even attempt to be pacifists,
but just as clearly, he expects all who are free of guilt and sin
to put war aside.
Searching questions on this basis may be asked
of modern pacifists and Quakers. Do those who claim the
right to be pacifists show forth consistently in their own
lives, even in small details, the virtue of that life and power
that took away the occasion of all wars for Fox? Word from
Civilian Public Service Camps is not encouraging on this point.
But do those of us who live more normal lives evidence the
high standard of purity for which the early Friends asked?
Does our pacifism issue from genuine purity of life, or are
there attitudes and actions in our lives which are
actually consistent with war? We have asked ourselves why
more Quakers are not pacifists; perhaps we should ask
ourselves why more of our number do not live the kind of life in
which there clearly would be no place for war. Pacifism is not
a cloak which is suddenly put on; rather, it is the
natural product of a Christlike life. The very fact that so many
of our number can participate in war is damning evidence
that our whole level of life is dangerously low. Our acceptance
of war is the symptom of a sadly lowered spiritual and
moral vitality. If we were as genuinely Christian as early
Quakerism demanded that its members be, we would know
that acceptance of war simply cannot be harmonized with
the perfect light of Christ.
Permeating every application of the Quaker
testimonies was the belief that nothing less than the Light of Christ
had given both the knowledge of how every detail of life
should be lived and also the power to execute perfectly
the commands of God. Quakerism in its origin was an
amazingly consistent attempt to realize here on earth in
mundane affairs the actual presence of God. With a daring
almost incomprehensible to their contemporaries, and to us
today, they honestly believed that God was incarnated in them;
as Jesus had been filled with divine light and power, so
were they to be filled until all of life became a glorified
experience of God. They believed with profound intensity in the
power of the Light within to redeem them completely from
darkness and sin. God had become a living part of them. Because
of this revelation of His perfect light, they believed that
every aspect of life should and could be brought into
harmony with the divine pattern.
The Result of Redemption
Perfect obedience to the Light normally results in
a relationship with God which can be described only
in mystical terms. If the Light within is truly from God,
then the one who obeys it utterly and entirely should
experience the relationship of communion and fellowship with
God which the saints in all ages have endeavored to
describe. Gone now is the sense of inner tension, the lack of
unity which characterizes one who has not surrendered
himself to the Light. He who has yielded himself to God in
holy obedience knows in humility that this redemption has
made him into a true child of God, heir and joint-heir with
Christ in all the purity and power of divine love.
In spite of the literary weaknesses of most of the
early Quakers, their descriptions of this experience of unity
with God ring with the air of sincerity and personal
experience. Common men and women though they were, they lived
in the same high inspiration that the great souls of the
past had known. These Friends knew that God dwelt with
them and, in the joy of that experience, they gladly yielded
up their whole lives in sacrifice to Him. Even in the midst
of the terrible ordeals which they suffered at the hands of
their enemies there came to them a peace and joy
utterly indescribable.
No value that the world offered could possibly
compare to the "pearl of great price" which they had discovered
in this living relationship of unity and fellowship with
God. Their lives were in harmony with Christ, sin had
been purged, and they had been filled with overwhelming
divine power and love.
The experience of the Light within, the early
Friends believed, meant unity not only with God, but also with
each other on basic questions of human conduct. To Fox it
was unthinkable that the Light would lead one person to
fight and another person to choose the paths of peace. Nor
could it lead one person to hate and another to love. The
Light must be the same in all men, and the presence of
differences meant that the Light had not been truly followed.
Individuals were to be entirely free to follow the Light within, but if
they were obedient it must inevitably lead to the same
conclusion for all. A high degree of divine totalitarianism was the
normal result of such a belief. This expressed itself most of all
in the Friends' meetings for business. Decisions were to
be reached, not on the basis of voting, but rather by
finding God's will, which must of necessity be the same for all.
Basic differences in opinion were, therefore, evidence that
God's will had not been found, that someone was not
following the Light.
Guided by democratic individualism, we hesitate
to follow the leading of the early Friends at this point. On
the issue of war and peace, we reluctantly accept a
divided meeting as an inevitable fact. Is it because we lack
faith that the Light can truly lead us into unity? Do we
believe that the Light has more than one answer to this
problem which all men face? Or are we unwilling to demand
that people be utterly obedient to the Light? Why is our
Society at war with itself on one of the most basic questions of
our day? Either the Light does not lead into unity, or we
have not been truly obedient. Surely the message of early
Friends has not been understood and practiced by us, or our
Society would not today be in its present condition of disunity
and division.
Obedience to the Light meant not only fellowship
with God and unity among Friends, but it also meant
fellowship with each other. This experience became concrete in
the sharing of personal property with those in need. The
Meeting for Sufferings - the first organization in early Quakerism
- was a practical expression of this rebirth of the
early Christian spirit of brotherhood. The manner in
which misunderstandings and disagreements were handled was
a living testimony to the power of love to rise above
human frailties. Redemption for these people meant a state of
love and unity with each other which has been surpassed
few times in human history.
Our Response to the Light
The message of this lecture cannot claim for itself
any great degree of originality. The interpretation of
early Quakerism as a perfectionistic movement has been
suggested before by William Comfort in his study booklet,
Quaker Trends for Modern Friends, and many others, headed
by Rufus Jones, have emphasized the importance of the
Light in the thought and experience of the first Quakers. Truth
is seldom new, but its value does not lie in its freshness.
Rather, truth acquires its significance when it is practiced.
The implementation of this basic Quaker principle
of divine indwelling in man is my concern. Knowledge
about the Light is not enough. What Thomas Kelly called
"holy obedience" is essential for a rejuvenation of our Society.
We know that the principles of our faith teach that we can
be filled with the same life and power and spirit that
produced the prophets and saints of the past, but that knowledge
has not made prophets and saints out of us. God waits for us
to add to that knowledge the willingness to obey
the Light consistently and completely.
Fearful lest we become extreme in our religion, we
have hesitated to follow the radical example set by the
early Friends. We prefer to be as moderate in our religion as
we are respectable in our sins. But the essence of
Christianity and Quakerism will never be captured by those who
are unwilling to he extreme in their devotion to God. "Thou
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with
all thy soul and with all thy
mind."40 Only those who practice a
dedication to God so absolute that every detail of life is
harmonized with the perfect teaching of the Light can know
the transforming, dynamic moral and spiritual power that
was discovered by George Fox.
Athanasius taught that Christ was made human in order that men might be made divine. God waits now
for some group to become a divine laboratory where the
Light may engage in experiments in bringing heaven to men.
As men in Civilian Public Service become human guinea
pigs, seeking thereby to reduce human sufferings, so ought
those who take Quakerism seriously to become living
experiments in God's laboratory, willing for His spirit to remould
them until the pattern of divine perfection is imprinted upon
their lives. All of the equipment which God needs is ready -
He waits only for our consent to share in the
experiment. Divinity resident within man! Do you dare to conceive
what it might mean in your life if you should give yourself
in abandonment to this holy experiment of God's invading
love in man? Can you dream of the results if even a part of
the young Friends here today were to become such a
laboratory for the Light? The unlocking of cosmic power and love
can be accomplished if you will become utterly,
completely obedient to the Light within you. All eternity is met in
you as Christ asks you to become a partner with Him in
the historic task of the redemption of our world from the
ocean of darkness that claims it to the ocean of God's
dazzling, blinding light of divine love and perfection.
Notes:
1. Romans 7:19.
2. Augustine, The Confessions of St.
Augustine, Harvard Classics Edition, 1909, page 137.
3. Penington, Isaac, The Works of Isaac
Penington, 1861, Volume I, pages 191-192.
4. Fox, George, The Works of George Fox, 1831, Volume
I, page 76.
5. Romans 3:23.
6. Fox, Works, Volume I, page 90.
7. Ibid., page 80.
8. Ibid., page 287.
9. Quoted in Rufus Jones' Spiritual Reformers in the
16th and 17th Centuries, 1914, page 244.
10. Fox, Works, Volume I, page 80.
11. Ibid., page 70.
12. Ibid., page 74. 13.
13. Ibid., page 75.
14. Penington, Works, Volume IV, page 78.
15. Fox, Works, Volume III, page 24.
16. Penn, William, No Cross, No
Crown, 1857, 23 ed., page 217.
17. Jeremiah 8:11.
18. Genesis 1:27.
19. Augustine, The Confessions of St.
Augustine, page 5.
20. John 4:14.
21. Answer 35.
22. Penington, Works, Volume I, page 9.
23. Fox, G., Volume VI, page 171.
24. Flew, R. Newton, The Idea of Perfection in
Christian Theology, 1934, page 290.
25. II Corinthians 5:17.
26. Fox, Works. Volume I, page 84.
27. Ibid., Volume III, page 24.
28. Clarkson, Thomas, A Portraiture of
Quakerism, 1870, pages 1-2.
29. James, William, The Varieties of Religious
Experiences, 1902, page 7.
30. Galatians 2:20.
31. I John 3:6.
32. Woolman, John, The Journal and Other
Writings, 1936, Introduction, page 10.
33. Penington, Works, Volume I, page 228.
34. Fox, Works, Volume III, page 114.
35. Ibid., page 305.
36. Ibid., Volume I, page 210.
37. Penn, William, No Cross, No
Crown, page 223.
38. Fox, Works. Volume I, page 173.
39. Barclay, Robert, An Apology for the True Christian
Divinity, 1908, page 537.
40. Matthew 22:37.