Cross-Hanson -- page 2

In the series of meetings that followed, the group never acceded to her request, and Barnard went home to America with the frustration of having been censored without specific charges. After returning to America, she would find herself disowned by her local meeting.

Great controversy was stirred up by Barnard. William Matthews notes in his 1802 collection of writings on the Barnard case:

"She was enjoined silence as a minister, and the rumour of her heterodoxy spread far and wide: All her former Gospel services by which many had once believed themselves edified, seemed to be willingly buried under a cloud of prejudices...and those of her own sex who could neither fathom her understanding, nor approach to her excellencies, were in the common habit of avoiding her as deluded, as dangerous, and as fallen from almost every thing that was good.!....[and it was] as though some strange monster of unbelief had beset the society, and was attempting to destroy the very ground of all security, present and eternal.... 16

One critic went so far as to imply that Barnard was "an enemy to Christianity, nearly approaching to Deism; he has even insinuated an approximation to Atheism!" 17 Another remarked acerbically about Barnard’s treatment of scripture: "....Not that I expect any argument drawn from the scriptures can convince any, who like Hannah, garble them at pleasure..." 18

But Barnard was not without advocates. Thomas Foster noted:

"Among those who disapproved of these proceedings against Hannah Barnard, was one ancient and justly esteemed Friend [who said] ‘For indeed you have condemned her for saying no more that the society has said for itself a long time ago, and published in print to the world; that the scriptures are a sealed book to every one, only as far as they are revealed to them, by the illumination of the holy spirit in their own hearts.’" 19

Other Quakers in particular recognized that Hannah’s case could set a very dangerous precedent for the Society. In Foster’s concluding section, he noted that while he did not necessarily agree with all of Barnard’s point of view regarding the Bible:

"There is no minute in the Book of Extracts, which authorizes the meeting of ministers and elders, a body, the members of which have collectively, and individually, the greatest weight and influence in our society, to erect themselves, if I may be allowed the expression, into a tribunal of accusation, and present a formal charge to a monthly meeting, against an individual....I should hope the good sense of the society, will perceive the danger of entrusting such extraordinary powers to the select meeting, and the necessity of reprobating with one voice, any further attempt (a circumstance by no means improbable), to exercise a privilege, much less calculated to produce conviction by the weight of evidence, than to crush the opponents by the millstone of authority." 20

In the Matthews collection, someone who called himself "Theophilus" warned Quakers that the next step in their society’s evolution might include the pressure to create a creedal statement by which every Quaker would be judged as to whether his or her faith was orthodox :

"...it has been thought by many Friends, that great disadvantages have arisen, and may be expected to arise, in the society under our name on account of the want of something like a plain standard, or society-agreement, relative to essential articles of faith...duly defining sundry points, to the end that all which is essential in belief, to the character of a member of the body, may be known:....Or, if not attainable, an explicit declaration may be profitably made, that the society cannot undertake to set up a standard of faith in such matters, whereby to bind or regulate the minds of its members." 21

The Barnard controversy foreshadows many of the key questions that will be raised later by Long Island minister Elias Hicks. One of the exchanges which became most discussed in the Hicksite controversy were Elias’ letters to Phebe Willis early in the 19th century concerning the proper use of the Bible. Willis was a fellow Long Island Quaker and friend to Elias Hicks, but because of her beliefs concerning scripture and other key theological issues she and her husband would later choose to join the side of the Orthodox minority in their local meeting.

Hicks opened his letter to Willis in 1818 by embracing the very pragmatic view that each person’s faith depended on his/her own experience as revealed to them by God:

"Dear Friend...I have...been led to see the necessity of investigating for myself all customs and doctrines, whether of a moral or of a religious nature, either verbally or historically communicated, by the greatest and best of men or angels, and not to sit down satisfied with any thing but the plain, clear, demonstrative testimony of the spirit and word of life and light in my own heart and conscience...." 22

Hicks made what would later become one of his most controversial observations, that "the book called the Scriptures...appears ...to have been the cause of four-fold more harm than good to Christendom, since the apostles’ days...." 23

He accused the "professors of Christianity" of "[holding] the Scriptures, or their interpretations of them, as their chief idol...such was their veneration for them, that for anyone to hold up any thing else as a rule, he was immediately pronounced a heretic or schismatic, and not fit to company or associate with in any way...." 24 ...." For is it possible that men can be guilty of greater idolatry, than to esteem and hold the Scriptures as the only rule of faith and practice, by which they place them in the very seat of God and worship them as God?" 25 Hicks cited this practice as a direct contradiction to the beliefs of Quaker founder George Fox, who "[bore] testimony to the light and spirit of truth in the hearts and consciences of men and women, as the only sure rule of faith and practice...complete and sufficient, without the aid of books or men...." 26 Hicks concluded his 1818 letter to Phebe Willis:

"....the Lord is graciously willing to reveal himself as fully to the children of men in this day as in any day of the world, without respect of persons, as each is attentive to his inward and spiritual manifestations...we are all, or have been, so bound down by tradition, being taught from the cradle to venerate the Scriptures, and people generally considering them so sacred as not be to investigated...hence we have all been more or less, dupes to tradition and error." 27

When an Orthodox Quaker critiqued a new volume of Hicks’ sermons in the Orthodox publication The Friend, he characterized Hicks’ objectives as: "To destroy all faith in Jesus Christ as the saviour of the world, to degrade him to the level of a mere man, and totally to lay waste the divine authority of the Holy Scriptures." 28

The Quaker women reformers who followed Hicks echoed his theology regarding scripture. Hicksite preacher Lucretia Mott, in a sermon to the Cherry Street Meeting in Philadelphia in 1849, redefined scripture itself, saying

"...in Christendom generally it is assumed that the Bible is the word of God, while we from the earliest date of our religious society have declared and believe we have been sustained by scripture testimony in the view that the word of God is a quickening spirit...." 29

Like Elias Hicks, she alluded to the "dangers" of the Bible when not used in conjunction with humanity’s ability to reason: "Is not the Bible sought from beginning to end for its isolated passages wherewith to prove the most absurd dogmas that ever were palmed off upon a credulous people; dogmas doing violence to the divine gift of reason with which man is so beautifully endowed....?" 30 "Let us then my friends cherish a religion which shall be rational and which shall be reasonable in its observances and in its requirements." 31

In the spirit of Hannah Barnard and Elias Hicks, Mott discussed the injustices that had been visited on society by misuse of Biblical authority: "has there not been an unworthy resort to this volume to prove the rightfulness of war and slavery, and of crushing woman’s powers, the assumption of authority over her, and indeed of all the evils under which the earth, humanity has groaned from age to age?" 32

Mott’s sermon echoed Hicks’ disdain for the reverence of the past for its own sake, and his hopes toward the new revelations of the future:

"We are not thus to use the example or practice of the ancients. It may have been well for them, coming from under the cloud of superstition formerly. They may still have needed their outward school master to bring them to a higher position, a higher sphere..." 33 ..."There is one source which is higher than this, and when we come to it we are drawn away, to some extent from all external dependences, from all outward authorities...." 34

Hicksite activist Susan B. Anthony, carried on an interesting set of interchanges with her partner in activism, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, considering the use of scripture. When asked whether she wished to be named on Stanton’s committee for the Woman’s Bible, Anthony responded:

"No I don’t want my name on that Bible Committee You fight that battle and leave me to fight the secular....I simply don’t want the enemy to be diverted from my practical ballot fight-- to that of scoring me for belief one way or the other about the bible-- The religious part has never been mine..." 35

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