The Doctrines of Elias Hicks
a Chapter from the
History of the Religious Society of Friends,
from its rise to the year 1828
Vol 4
originally published in 1867 in four volumes.
by
Samuel M. Janney
In America, the Society of Friends, during the first
quarter of [the Nineteenth] century, generally held the views inculcated by Fox,
Penn, Pennington, and Barclay, and were accustomed, in their
ministry, to lay great stress on the Grace of God or Spirit of Christ
revealed in the soul, as the efficient cause of salvation. It is believed
that the ministry and writings of Job Scott had much influence
in promoting this spiritual view of Christianity; and Elias
Hicks, who began his ministry about the year 1775, had long been
a distinguished advocate of the same doctrine. He had
travelled much as a minister of the gospel, and for more than forty
years his services had been highly esteemed throughout the
Society, there being then little or no opposition to his religious views.
"In declaring what he believed to be the counsel
of God, he was bold and fearless, and his ministry,
though unadorned with the embellishments of human
learning, was clear and powerful. In argument he was strong
and convincing, and his appeals to the experience
and convictions of his hearers were striking and
appropriate,"1
In private life he was a bright example of the
Christian virtues; a peacemaker, a friend to the poor, and
especially concerned to bear an uncompromising testimony against
the enslavement and oppression of the African race.
The doctrinal views of Elias Hicks have been
diversely understood or construed by different individuals according
to the point of view from which they were contemplated. By
his adversaries he was charged with holding and
promulgating doctrines at variance with the fundamental principles
of Christianity; while on the other hand his friends maintained, that
his views were generally in accordance with the Scriptures
of Truth, and with the writings of the early Friends.
A fair and candid investigation of this subject requires
a thorough examination of his writings and
acknowledged discourses; and in making selections to illustrate his views, a
due regard will be had to the context, and to the general scope of
his remarks.
Immediate Revelation
It has been shown in Chapter I, sections 9 and 10,
that according to the writings of the early Friends there is
"an evangelical principle of light and life, wherewith Christ
hath enlightened every man that cometh into the
world."2
On this point, Elias Hicks writes as follows:
"God is a Spirit, invisible and incomprehensible to
every thing but spirit, agreeably to the doctrine and
conclusive argument of the Apostle Paul, `What man knoweth the things
of a man save the spirit of man which is in him? even so, the
things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God;' and again,
`the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God,
for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them,
because they are spiritually,' and only spiritually, `discerned.' It
therefore necessarily follows that man, with all the wisdom he can
acquire, aided by human science, however elaborately studied, and
with the further assistance of all the books and writings in the
world, if void of immediate divine
revelation, never has known, nor ever can know God, in relation either to his essence, or those
excellent attributes which are in correspondence and unison with his
pure, holy, and unchangeable nature; for that which may be known
of God is manifest within man,3 and that not by his reasoning
powers, but by the immediate impression and unpremeditated
sensations which the immortal spirit of man feels and sees, by being
brought into contact with and under the certain and self-evident
influence of the Spirit of God upon it. And hence a man is enabled
to attribute to God his due only from sensible and
self-evident experience."4
"Hence the necessity of every individual rallying to
the standard, the light within, for in that only can we as a
people unite our strength; that being our only standard principle from
the beginning; and if we desert that or add anything to it,
as essential, besides good works, we shall become a broken
and divided people, and must remain so until all recur to this
first principle as our only rule of faith and practice; and prove by
our fruits that we are led and guided by it, that is, by our just
and righteous works, doing unto all others as we would that
others should do unto us."5
The Holy Scriptures
The views of the early Friends in relation to the
Scriptures have been exhibited in Chapter II of this treatise. They
believed in the authenticity and divine authority of the sacred
writings, and expressed a willingness that "all their doctrines and
practices should be tried by them." Nevertheless, "because they are
only a declaration of the fountain and not the fountain itself,
therefore they are not to be esteemed the principal ground of all truth
and knowledge, nor yet the adequate primary rule of faith
and manners." They are "a secondary rule, subordinate to the
spirit from which they have all their excellency and
certainty."6
Elias Hicks writes as follows:
"As to the Scriptures of Truth, as recorded in the
book called the Bible, I have ever believed that all parts of them
that could not be known but by revelation, were written by
holy men as they were inspired by the Holy Ghost, and could not
be known through any other medium, and they are profitable
for our encouragement, comfort and instruction, in the very
way that the apostle testifies; and I have always accounted
them, when rightly understood, as the best of books extant. I
have always delighted in reading them, in my serious moments,
in preference to any other book, from my youth up, and have
made more use of their contents to confirm and establish my
ministerial labors in the gospel than most other ministers that I am
acquainted with.
"But at the same time, I prize
that from whence they have derived their
origin, much higher than I do them; as I `that
for which a thing is such, the thing itself is more such.' And no
man, I conceive, can know and rightly profit by them, but by
the opening of the same inspiring spirit by which they were
written; and I apprehend I have read them as much as most other men, and
few, I believe, have derived more profit from them than I
have."7
In another letter he says: "As respects the Scriptures
of Truth, I have highly esteemed them from my youth up,
have always given them the preference to any other book, and
have read them abundantly more than any other book, and I
would recommend all to the serious and diligent perusal of them.
And I apprehend I have received as much comfort and
instruction from them as any other man. Indeed they have instructed
me home to the sure unchangeable foundation - the light within,
or spirit of truth, the only gospel foundation that leads and
guides into all truth, and thereby completes man's salvation,
which nothing else ever has, or ever can do.
"But why need I say these things, as all men know that
have heard me, that I confirm my doctrine abundantly from
their testimony: and I have always endeavored sincerely to place
them in their true place and station, but never dare exalt them
above what they themselves declare; and as no spring can rise
higher than its fountain, so likewise the Scriptures can only direct
to the fountain from whence they originated - the spirit of
truth: as saith the apostle, `The things of God knoweth no man, but
the Spirit of God;' therefore when the Scriptures have directed
and pointed us to this light within, or Spirit of Truth, there
they must stop - it is their ultimatum - the top stone of what
they can do. And no other external testimony of men or books
can do any more.
"And Jesus, in his last charge to his disciples, in order
to prevent them from looking without for instruction in the
things of God, after he had led them up to the highest pinnacle
that any outward evidence could effect, certified them that this
light within, or spirit of truth, by which only their salvation could
be effected, dwelt with them and should be in them. And this
every Christian knows to be a truth; and there never was a real
Christian made by any other power than this spirit of truth; and
everything that can be done by man without it, must fail of effecting
his salvation."8
These passages, written in the year 1829, may be
considered as expressing the settled opinions of Elias Hicks in the last
year of his life. It is much to be regretted that in some letters of
an earlier date, written apparently without due consideration,
and in the confidence of friendship, (which proved to be
misplaced,) he expressed sentiments apparently at variance with those
above quoted.
In a letter to Phebe Willis, dated 5th mo. 19th, 1818,
and first published by his opponents without his consent, the
following passages are found: "Among other subjects I have been led,
I trust carefully and candidly, to investigate the effect
produced by the book called the Scriptures since it has borne
that appellation ; and it appears from a comparative view, to
have been the cause of fourfold more harm than good to
Christendom, since the apostles' days, and which I think must be
indubitably plain to every faithful honest mind that has investigated
her history free from the undue bias of education and tradition.
"Mark the beginning of the apostasy. When the
professors of Christianity began to quarrel with and separate from
each other, it all sprung from their different views and
different interpretations of passages of Scripture; and to such a pitch
did their quarrels arise, as that a recourse to the sword was
soon deemed necessary to settle those disputes. And the
strongest party in that line finding, that as long as the people were at
liberty, and had the privilege of searching the Scriptures and
putting their own interpretations upon them, and making them
their rule, diversity of opinion and differences would increase, this
led the strongest party to that disagreeable and unchristian
alternative of wresting them out of their hands, and forbidding their
being read by the people at large. And this state of things
continued for many years, until the beginning of the Reformation by
Martin Luther.
"It will be now necessary to consider whether the
Scriptures were in any wise accessory to this infant beginning of reformation?
I think it is clear they were not; but as Luther and his
adherents gained strength, they began to shake off the yoke of
papal oppression, and among other things, the restriction on
the Scriptures was taken off, and every citizen that joined
Luther's party had the privilege of reading the Scriptures at his pleasure.
"And what was the result? A diversity of
sentiment respecting what they taught, which soon set the reformers
one against another and produced such divisions and
animosities among them that recourse was again had to the sword to
settle disputes. In this condition things continued until Geo. Fox
was raised up to bear 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, both in relation to religious and
moral things, and which was complete and sufficient without the aid
of books or men, as his doctrine and example clearly evinces,
as his reformation was begun and carried on without the
necessary aid of either."
"What I have written has been done in scraps of time
that I have, as it were, stolen from my other many avocations,
without any time to copy it, or give it much
examination; therefore I hope thou wilt excuse the improprieties that may have escaped
my notice, believing that thou wilt be able to apprehend the
main drift of the arguments, and be willing to put
the best construction on such parts as may, to thee, appear
erroneous."9
In considering this ill-digested letter, the query
naturally arises: If the Scriptures "have been the
cause of fourfold more harm than good to Christendom," why was the "forbidding
their being read by the people at large," an "unchristian" act.
The remark in relation to the Protestant Reformation, that
the Scriptures were not "in any wise accessory" to its beginning,
is also founded in mistake; for it appears that the New
Testament was, through divine grace, made instrumental to enlighten
the mind of Luther and discover to him the errors of Romanism.
As to George Fox, we know that the Bible was his
constant companion; his writings are replete with Scripture texts, and
probably no other teacher ever referred more constantly to
the sacred volume. It was "his frequent advice to Friends, to keep
to Scripture language, terms, words, and doctrines, as taught
by the Holy Ghost, in matters of faith, religion, controversy,
and conversation, and not to be imposed upon and drawn
into unscriptural terms, invented by men in their human
wisdom."10
Justice towards Elias Hicks requires that we should give
due weight to the extenuating circumstances that attended the
writing and publication of his letters to Phebe Willis, whom he
regarded as a cordial friend. If he erred in writing them, how much
more blameworthy were they, who gave them publicity without
his consent!
He stated his views more explicitly in a letter to
Moses Brown, dated 3d mo. 30th, 1825, as the following passage
will show, viz. : "As to what thou sayest of my contradicting
myself, by saying at one time, that the Scriptures were the best
book, and at another time, that it does more hurt than good; if this
is, to thee, a paradox, it is one, I conceive, thy own
common sense and every day's observation would easily solve. For it is my
candid belief, that those that hold and believe the Scriptures to be
the only rule of faith and practice, to these it does much more
hurt than good. And has anything tended more to divide
Christendom into sects and parties than the Scriptures? and by which so
many cruel and bloody wars have been promulgated [promoted].
And yet at the same time, may it not be one of the best books,
if rightly used under the guidance of the Holy Spirit? But, if
abused, like every other blessing, it becomes a curse. Therefore to
these it always does more hurt than good; and thou knowest that
these comprehend far the greatest part of
Christendom."11
There is, however, sufficient evidence to show that a
vast amount of good has been derived from the proper use of
the Scriptures: if evil has resulted from their abuse, it is no
more than may be said of other precious gifts received from a
bountiful Creator.
A number of passages extracted from the printed
sermons of Elias Hicks, have been published and circulated by
his adversaries, most of which, being separated from the
context, give an erroneous view of his religious opinions. Some of
these extracts relating to the Scriptures are here subjoined,
together with a portion of the context. The sentences extracted by
his opponents are included in
brackets,12 viz.:
"We find, that although these things are so plainly
written in the book which we call the Bible, yet we feel and
know certainly that there is no power in it to enable us to
put in practice what is therein written. [One would suppose that, to a
rational mind, the hearing and reading of the instructive parables of
Jesus would have a tendency to reform, and turn men about to
truth, and lead them on in it. But they have no such
effect.]" In the following paragraph he says: "We may read of this; but has
the letter ever turned any one to the right thing,
unless the light opening it to the
understanding has helped him to put in
practice what the letter dictates?"
The meaning intended to be conveyed by the speaker
is evidently the same as thus expressed by Isaac Pennington:
"Life cannot be received from the Scriptures, but
only from Christ the fountain thereof; no more can
the Scriptures give the rule, but point to the fountain
of the same life, where alone the rule of life, as the
life itself, can be received. The Scriptures cannot
ingraft into Christ nor give a living rule to him that
is ingrafted; but he that hath heard the testimony of
the Scriptures concerning Christ, and hath come to
him, must abide in him and wait on him for the writing
of the law of the Spirit of life in his heart, and this will
be his rule from the law of sin and death, even unto
the land of life."13
Another garbled quotation from the Sermons of Elias
Hicks, when united with a portion of the context, reads as follows:
"O that the spirit that dwelt in David might dwell
in us; that, from a sense of our impotence and weakness, our
prayers might ascend like his; `Lord show me my secret faults.' And
what are these faults that are so various and so many? Why, some
are led sway to the worship of images by being deceived and
turned aside by tradition and books; they worship other gods beside
the true God. [They have been so bound up in the letter, that
they think they must attend to it to the exclusion of everything
else. Here is an abominable idol worship of a thing with out any
life at all, - a dead monument!] Oh! that our minds might
be enlightened, - that our hearts might be opened, - that we
might know the difference between thing and thing. Most of the
worship in Christendom is idolatry, dark and blind idolatry; for
all outward worship is so, - it is a mere worship of images. For if
we make an image merely in imagination, it is an
idol."14
In this passage the censure intended to be conveyed
was not against the use, but the abuse of the Scriptures. The
same idea is expressed in the following quotation from Pennington.
"They run to the Scriptures with that
understanding which is out of the truth, and which never shall be
let into the truth; and so being not able to reach
and comprehend the truth as it is, they study, they
invent, they imagine a meaning; they form a likeness,
a similitude of the truth as near as they can, and
this must go for the truth; and this they honor and
bow before as the will of God; which being not the will
of God, but a likeness of their own inventing and forming, they worship not God, they honor not
the Scriptures, but they honor and worship the work
of their own brain.
"And every scripture which man hath thus formed
a meaning out of, and hath not read in the true
and living light of God's eternal spirit, he hath made
an image by, he hath made an idol of; and the respect
and
honor he gives this meaning is not a respect and
honor given to God, but to his own image, to his own
idol."15
The following passage from a sermon of Elias Hicks has
been selected by his opponents to show that he and his friends
assert "that the direction of our Lord to search the Scriptures is
not correct," viz.: "Now the book we read in says, `Search
the Scriptures.' But this is incorrect; we must all see it is
incorrect; because we have all reason to believe they read the
Scriptures, and hence they accused Jesus of being an
impostor."16
The remainder of the paragraph was withheld; it reads
as follows: "They were more intent upon reading the
Scriptures than any other people under heaven. They read them,
thinking that through them they should become wise by the letter."
The learned Adam Clark affirms, that the text here
referred to should be translated, "Ye search the Scriptures
diligently;" and adds: "Perhaps the Scriptures were never more
diligently searched than at that very time."
Barclay says: "That place may be taken in the
indicative mood, `Ye search the Scriptures;' which interpretation the
Greek word will bear; and so Pasor translateth it: which, by the
reproof following, seemeth also to be the more genuine
interpretation; as Cyrillus long ago hath
observed."17
The Original And Present State Of Man
By reference to the third chapter of this treatise, it will
be seen that the commonly received doctrine of original sin
was not held by the early Friends.
In accordance with their views, Elias Hicks writes as
follows: "As to the doctrine of original sin, according to the
acceptation of some professors of Christianity, that we are under the
curse for the transgression of our first parents, I abhor the idea, as
it casts a great indignity on the divine character to think that
a gracious and merciful God should condemn us for an act
that was wholly out of our power to avoid! I consider it very
little short, if any, of blasphemy against God. For I have never
felt myself under condemnation for any sin but my own, neither
have I felt any justification for any righteousness but what has
been wrought in me by the grace of God: believing with the
apostle, that `by grace we are saved through faith, and that not
of ourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works lest any man
should boast;' that is, not any works of our own, `for we are
his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works,
which God hath before ordained that we should walk in
them.'"18
In a sermon, at Pine Street Meeting, Philadelphia,
Elias Hicks is reported to have spoken an follows, viz.: "He [the
Most High] gives us the grace of repentance, and enables us so to
walk as to be reconciled to him, and gain a greater establishment
in himself, and in the truth, than when we first came
out of his creating hands. For although man was made pure and
without defilement, - for He declares that all that he made `was
very good,' - yet man had no virtue, for he had no knowledge:
we bring no true knowledge into the world with us.
"But God, in his infinite wisdom and goodness, saw
that the only way in which man could rise and be a communicant
with Him, was to place him in a state of probation, and
furnish him with means whereby be might go on in the warfare that
this state of probation opened in his soul. For having endued
his creature man with propensities both of body and mind,
these propensities tempted him to turn aside from the will of
his Creator. Here was immediately a warfare begun - God was
on one side, and everything good was united with him and in
him. The creature - the rational creature, as it was united to the
animal body, was of the earth and therefore earthy.
"As the apostle says: `The first man is of the earth,
earthy: the second man,' that is the birth of God in the soul, is
spiritual. Every one that is born of God has this inward birth; as we
read, `that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is
natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.' And here now, this
has been the experience of every rational soul under heaven: and
it is the only medium whereby we can ever be united again
to God. And if man had not fallen, as we come into the
world without knowledge and capacity to do anything,
though innocent: so we must know another birth - a birth of the
immortal spirit, which is as invisible as God himself. We must come
to witness a birth of the Spirit, a second birth, as Jesus
declared to Nicodemus, `Except a man be born again he cannot see
the kingdom of God.'"19
On The Divine Being
It has been shown in the fourth chapter of this treatise,
that the early Friends rejected the commonly received doctrine
of the Trinity, or distinct and separate personality of Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit; and that they acknowledged the Divinity
of Christ as taught in the Scriptures.20
In order to institute a comparison between their
doctrines and those of Elias Hicks, the following selection has been
made from his writings and reported discourses.
"The doctrine of the Trinity, as held by many
professing Christians, I also consider a weak and vulgar error: that of
three distinct persons in one God, and that each of these persons
is whole God, as, I think, is inserted in some of the confessions
of faith. As I believe there cannot be a greater absurdity than
to apply personality to God, in any right sense of the word,
as personality implies locality, which signifies limited to place,
which would be very impious to say of the infinite Jehovah; it is also
a doctrine unwarranted by Scripture, as the word Trinity is not
to be found in the Bible; for although the apostle is made to
say, agreeably to our present translation, that there are three
that bear record in Heaven, yet he assures us that
these three are but one."21
The following extract from a Sermon delivered by
Elias Hicks in Pine Street Meeting, Philadelphia, 12th month 10th, 1826,
is one of the passages on which a charge against him of
promulgating "anti-Christian doctrines" was made by the ruling party in
that meeting, and sent by a committee to his own monthly
meeting, viz.:
"I say, dearly beloved, my soul craves it for us, that we
may sink down and examine ourselves; according to the
declaration of the Apostle: `Examine yourselves whether ye be in the faith;
prove your own selves: know ye not your own selves, how
that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?'
"Now we cannot suppose that the Apostle meant
that outward man, that walked about the streets of Jerusalem;
because he is not in any of us. But what is this Jesus Christ? He came
to be a Saviour to that nation, and was limited to that nation.
He came to gather up and look up the lost sheep of the house
of Israel. But as he was a Saviour in the outward sense, so he was
an outward shadow of good things to come; and so the work of
the man Jesus Christ was a figure. He healed the sick of their
outward calamities, - he cleansed the leprosy, - all of which was
external and affected only their bodies, - as sicknesses don't affect
the souls of the children of men, though they may labor under
all these things. But as be was considered a saviour, he meant
by what he said, a saviour is within you, the anointing of the
Spirit of God is within you: for this made the ways of Jesus so
wonderful in his day, that the Psalmist in his prophecy concerning
him exclaims: `Thou hast loved righteousness and hated
iniquity, therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the
oil of gladness above thy fellows.'
"He had loved righteousness, you perceive, and
therefore was prepared to receive the fulness of the Spirit, the fulness
of the divine anointing; for there was no germ of evil in him
or about him: both his soul and body were pure. He was
anointed above all his fellows, to be the head of the
church, the top stone, the chief
cornerstone, elect and precious. And what was it
that was a saviour? Not that which was outward; it was not flesh
and blood: for `flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom
of heaven:' it must go to the earth from whence it was taken. It
was that life, that same life that I have already mentioned, that
was in him and which is the light and life of men, and which
lighteth every man, and consequently every woman that cometh
into the world. And we have this light and life in us; which is
what the apostle meant by Jesus Christ; and if we have not this ruling
in us, we are dead, because we are not under the law of the
spirit of life. For the `law is light, and the reproofs of instruction
the way of life.'"
After Elias Hicks took his seat, Jonathan Evans, an elder
of Pine Street Meeting, arose and declared that the Society
of Friends believed in "the atonement, mediation, and
intercession of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ."
"We believe him," said he, "to be King of kings and Lord of lords, before whose
judgment-seat every soul shall be arraigned and judged by him. We do
not conceive him to be a mere man; and we therefore desire
that people may not suppose that we hold any such doctrines, or
that we have any unity with them."
Isaac Lloyd, another elder of the same meeting, said: "I
unite with Jonathan Evans, - we never have believed that our
blessed Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, came to the Jews
only, for he was given for God's salvation to the ends of the
earth,"22
Elias Hicks added, "I have spoken; and I leave it for
the people to judge, - I don't assume the judgment-seat."
On this point Wm. Penn writes as follows: "The coming
of Christ in that blessed manifestation [in the flesh] was to
the Jews only: he says it himself, `He was not sent but to the lost sheep
of the house of Israel.' Matt. xv. 24. Again: `He came unto his
own, and his own received him not.' John i.
11."23
Isaac Pennington, on behalf of the Friends, writes:
"Now they distinguish, according to the Scriptures, between that
which is called the Christ and the bodily garment which he took.
The one was flesh, the other spirit. `The flesh profiteth nothing,'
saith he; `the Spirit quickeneth, and he that eateth me shall live
by me, even as I live by the Father.' John vi. 67, 63. This is
the manna, itself the true treasure; the other but the visible or
earthen vessel which held it. The body of flesh was but the veil.
Heb. x. 20. The eternal life was the substance veiled. The one he
did partake of as the rest of the children did; the other was he
which did partake thereof. Heb. ii. 14."
George Whitehead writes: "Christ, as God, his soul
was increated. As man, his soul or spirit was not the
Deity, but formed and assumed by the Word. The Word or Son of God who
made the world, was not a creature' because he made all
creatures."24
The following passages, from the letters of Elias
Hicks to some of his intimate friends, disclose his sentiments in
relation to the Divinity of Christ, his miraculous conception,
miracles, resurrection and ascension, viz.:
"Jesus Christ in his outward
manifestation was more blest and abundantly more glorified than any other man,
and was above all, and therefore was the representative of God on
earth, visible to the external senses, although the power by which he did
his mighty works was the invisible power of God, conferred
upon him for that end, he being the instrument through whom
God, by his power, wrought all those mighty works, that declared
him to be the Son of God with power; but it was only the effects
of the power, and not the power that was visible to the
outward senses of his disciples and the people.
"Hence it was expedient that he should leave them as
to his visible appearance, as nothing short of that could open
the way for their reception of the Holy Spirit as a leader. And
in another respect he stood in the place of God to that people,
in raising their dead outwardly, and healing all their
outward maladies, and forgiving those he healed of all their legal sins,
by which he qualified them to enjoy all the privileges and
good things of their outward Heaven [Canaan], and all the
happiness it comprehended. In which he and his mighty works
outwardly wrought were a complete figure of the work of God on
the believing soul; raising it from the death of sin, healing it of all
its spiritual maladies, and fitting it for the enjoyment of the
divine presence, which is Heaven in the substance.
"And as he stood in the place of God outwardly to
Israel, so he was likewise a real and true man, as the
Scriptures abundantly assure us, being the son or offspring of Abraham and
David after the flesh; born of an Israelitish
virgin, brought up and nursed by his parents, and was subject unto them until
he arrived at the state of manhood; complying faithfully with
all the requisitions and ordinances of the Jewish law, by which
he justified his Heavenly Father in giving that law and
those commandments; proving by his faithfully fulfilling all of
them, that it was within the capacity and power of every Israelite
to have done the same, had they faithfully improved the
ability they had received for that end; and by which he
condemned their unfaithfulness.
"And the last ritual was John's water baptism, by
complying with which he fulfilled all the righteousness of the outward
law and testament, and was then prepared for entering upon
his mission by the more full effusion of the Holy Spirit,
which descended upon him as soon as he had finished all the work
of shadows relative to the law state, and which qualified him for
his gospel mission, in which he went forth clothed with power
from on high, preaching the glad tidings of peace and salvation.
"Very few, however, understood or believed his
doctrines, being so outward and worldly-minded. And when he had
finished his ministration, in which he fulfilled the righteousness of
both the law and the gospel, setting thereby an example to all
his followers, - showing them that by faithfulness to the
operations of the same spirit and power, according to the measure
received, they might do the same; yea, he assured his immediate
followers that even greater works than these which he had done,
should they do.
"When he had thus finished his course, he
surrendered himself to his enemies who crucified him, that is his
outward body, which was all they could do. But when he gave up
the ghost, his immortal spirit rose superior to all their malice,
and ascended immediately into Paradise. This ascension was
not visible to the outward senses; his body was laid in the tomb,
- and to complete the figure of our redemption, it was
raised again
outwardly; by which is typified the crucifixion of the old
fallen man with all his deeds, which is affected by the cross of Christ,
as saith the apostle: `Know ye not, that so many of us as
were baptized into Jeans Christ,' that is, into the Spirit and power
of God, `were baptized into his death?' Therefore we are
buried with him by baptism into death; that like as Christ was
raised up, outwardly, `from the dead by the glory of the Father, even
so we also should' be spiritually raised up to `walk in newness
of life.'
"And this outward ascension as it was manifest to
the external senses of his disciples, must have been the outward
man, as the immortal spirit of the Saviour never was, nor ever
could be seen by outward eyes, - hence this outward ascension was
a complete type of the inward or spiritual ascension of the
immortal soul of man from an earthly to a heavenly state; by which
it regains Paradise, and which must and will be regained by
every redeemed soul on this side the
grave."25
In another letter written by Elias Hicks, less than three
years before his decease, he says: "Thy next query respecting
the miraculous conception, &c., is to me a very plain, simple
thing. All the external miracles of the Jewish covenant had but
one aim and end; and the miraculous conception of Jesus, and of
law and John the Baptist were among the greatest; all of which
were intended to prove to that dark and ignorant people, debased
by their bondage, that there was a living and invisible God;
for such was their degraded state that no other means
seemed calculated to awaken them, and raise in them a belief in
that invisible power that made and governed the world, but
an external manifestation thereof, through the medium of
outward miracles.
"And as Moses and the prophets had foretold of the
coming of their last great prophet, it was of singular importance to
that people, that they should know and believe in him when he
came; and as they depended on outward miracles as the highest
evidence under that dispensation, so it is not only reasonable, but even
natural to suppose that he would be ushered in by
some miraculous display of divine power. Hence the reason,
likewise; of the many miracles that Jesus was empowered to work
among them, as they were too outward and carnal to receive
evidence through any other medium. And we likewise see that none
but those who believed on him as their promised Messiah
were prepared to receive and obey his last counsel and command
to turn from outward and external evidence to that which is
inward and spiritual;26 the latter being as much above the former as
the gospel state is above the law state, or the spirit above the letter."
"As to the divinity of Jesus Christ the son of the virgin
when he had arrived at a full state of sonship in the
spiritual generation, he was wholly swallowed up into the divinity of
his Heavenly Father, and was one with the Father, with only
this difference: his Father's divinity was underived, being
self-existent; but the Son's divinity was altogether derived from the
Father, for otherwise he could not be the Son of God, as in the
moral relation to be a son of man, the son must be begotten by
one father, and he must be in the same nature, spirit, and likeness
of his father, so as to say, I and my father are one, in all
those respects.
"But this was not the case with Jesus in the spiritual
relation until he had gone through the last institute of the
law dispensation, viz., John's watery baptism, and had
received additional power27 from on high by the descending of the
Holy Ghost upon him as he came up out of the
water.28 He then witnessed the fulness of the second birth, being now born
into the nature, spirit, and likeness of the Heavenly Father, and
God gave witness of it to John, saying, `This is my beloved Son
in whom I am well pleased.'"29
Salvation By Christ.
The doctrine of salvation by Christ, as held by the
early Friends, has been exhibited in the fifth Chapter of this
treatise, and recapitulated in the fifth section of Chapter VII.
The views of Elias Hicks on this subject are expressed
in the following passages from his letters and sermons:
"All the persecution and cruel deaths that have
transpired in the world among mankind; not only the persecution
and crucifixion of Jesus Christ; but also all the sufferings
and martyrdom caused by wicked men, have had their rise and
spring from man's unjust and unrighteous use of his liberty and
power, conferred upon him only to do his master's will in all things."
"Had the Israelites all been faithful to the outward
covenant given them through Moses, they would all have been
prepared to have received their Messiah in the way of his coming, as
did those that believed on him, and by which the end of his
coming would have been much more fully answered; as all Israel
then, like the disciples of Jesus Christ, would willingly have
passed from the old, and cheerfully entered into the new
dispensation. Hence no crucifixion, no suffering or death of Jesus Christ
would have taken place.
"But when his ministry on earth was finished, by
fulfilling the law and abolishing that outward covenant, and turning
the minds of the people to the inward, to the law written in
the heart, and when, by a life of perfect righteousness and
self-denial, he had introduced his disciples into the gospel, he would
then have been (like Enoch and Elijah) translated, without
suffering the pains of death. But as Divine Wisdom foresaw that his
people Israel would revolt from his commandments, and rebel
against his law and become cruel and hard-hearted, so likewise he
foresaw that the wicked among them would cruelly persecute and
slay many of the righteous, and his son Jesus Christ among the rest.
"Therefore he inspired many of his servants to testify
of these things amongst them before they came to pass, as
warning and caution, that so those who were seeking after the right
way, might be preserved from taking any part therein, while
those who wilfully hardened their hearts against reproof might
suffer the penalties resulting from their crimes, which they
had committed in their own free choice, contrary to the counsel
and will of their Creator."30
In a letter to Dr. Nathan Shoemaker, Elias Hicks wrote
as follows:31 "By what means did Jesus suffer? The answer is plain
- by the hands of wicked men, and because his works
were righteous and theirs were wicked. Query. Did God send
him into the world purposely to suffer death by the hands of
wicked men? By no means; but to live a righteous and Godly life
(which was the design and end of God's creating man in the
beginning), and thereby be a perfect example to such of mankind as
should come to the knowledge of him and his perfect life.
"For if it was the purpose and will of God that he
should die by the hands of wicked men, then the Jews by crucifying
him would have done God's will, and of course would all have
stood justified in his sight, which could not be. But it was permitted
so to be, as it had been with many of the prophets and wise
and good men that were before him, who suffered death by the
hands of wicked men for righteousness' sake, as ensamples to
those that came after, that they should account nothing too dear
to give up for the truth's sake, not even their own lives.
"But the shedding of his blood by the wicked Scribes
and Pharisees and people of Israel, had a particular effect on the
Jewish nation, as by this, the topstone, and worst of all their crimes,
was filled up the measure of their iniquities, and which put an end
to that dispensation, together with its law and covenant. That,
as John's baptism summed up in one, all the previous water
baptisms of that dispensation, and put an end to them, which he
sealed with his blood, so this sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ, summed
up in one all the outward atoning sacrifices of the
shadowy dispensation and put an end to them all, thereby abolishing
the law, having previously fulfilled all its righteousness, and, as
with the apostle, `He blotted out the handwriting of ordinances
nailing them to his cross;' having put an end to the law that
commanded them, with all its legal sins, and abolished all its legal
penalties, so that all the Israelites that believed on him, after he
exclaimed on the cross, `It is finished,' might abstain from all the rituals
of their law, such as circumcision, water baptisms, outward
sacrifices, Seventh-day sabbaths, and all their other holydays, &c., and
be blameless: and the legal sins that any were guilty of, were
now remitted and done away by the abolishment of the law
that commanded them, for `where there is no law there is
no transgression.'
"But those that did not believe on him, many of them
were destroyed by the sword, and the rest were scattered abroad
in the earth. But I do not consider that the crucifixion of the
outward body of flesh and blood of Jesus on the cross, was an atonement
for any sins but the legal sins of the Jews; for as their law was
outward, so their legal sins and their penalties were outward, and
these could be atoned for by an outward sacrifice; and this last
outward sacrifice was a full type of the inward sacrifice that every
sinner must make, in giving up that sinful life of his own
will, in and by which he hath, from time to time, crucified the innocent life
of God in his own soul; and which Paul calls `the old man with
his deeds,' or `the man of sin and eon of perdition,' who hath
taken God's seat in the heart, and there exalteth itself above all that
is called God, or is worshipped, sitting as judge and supreme.
"Now all this life, power, and will of man must be slain
and die on the cross spiritually, as Jesus died on the cross
outwardly, and this is the true atonement, which that outward atonement
was a clear and full type of. This the Apostle Paul sets forth in a
plain manner, Romans vi. 3 and 4. `Know ye not that so many of us
as were baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized into his death?
Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death,
that like as Christ was raised up from the dead,' (outwardly,) `by
the glory of the Father, even so we,' having by the spiritual
baptism witnessed a death to sin, shall know a being raised up
spiritually and so walk in newness of
life."32
In a letter of later date he writes: "As to the advantage
the reviewers have taken or pretended to take, on what they
construe as an admission on my part, in my letter to Dr. Shoemaker,
that the death of Christ merely of itself was an atonement at all, I
had no such idea; for I believe I rested it principally
on the effects of his mission and death.
"As is very clear, not only from the apostle's
testimony where he asserts that Jesus had abolished the law, and
`blotted out the handwriting of ordinances, nailing them to his
cross,' &c.; but also by the facts which followed, some of which
were manifest while he was with his disciples, in justifying them for
a breach of their shadowy Sabbath, and divers other things in
their conduct which made a breach upon the letter of their law.
By which the design of his mission is proved, that it was
purposely to put an end to that law and covenant, and to introduce
a better: not another outward one, but an inward one,
agreeably to the prophecy of Jeremiah. And this he clearly and amply
did in his sermon on the mount, as is before shown, but was
finished by his last act of surrender on the cross, when he bowed his
head and said, `It is finished.' At which time the vail of the temple
was rent in twain from the top to the
bottom."33
In his sermon at Pine Street, Philadelphia, delivered
12th month 10th, 1826, Elias Hicks, after referring to "the blood
of the Lamb," by which the soul "is washed clean," proceeds
as follows: "And what is the blood of the Lamb? It was his life,
my friends; for as outward material blood was made use of to
express the animal life, inspired men used it as a simile. Outward
blood is the life of the animal, but it has nothing to do with the
soul; for the soul has no animal blood, - no material blood. The life of
God in the soul, is the blood of the soul, and the life of God
is the blood of God; and so it was the life and blood of Jesus
Christ his son. For he was born of the spirit of his heavenly Father,
and swallowed up fully and completely in his divine nature, so
that he was completely divine. It was this that operated in
that twofold state, and governed the whole animal man, which
was the son of Abraham and David - a tabernacle for his
blessed soul."34
In the year 1829, "Six Queries" were proposed by
Thomas Leggett, Jr., of New York, and answered by Elias Hicks. The
last was as follows:
Sixth Query. What relation has the body of Jesus
to the Saviour of man? Dost thou believe that the crucifixion of
the outward body of Jesus Christ was an atonement for our sins?
Answer. "In reply to the first part of this query, I answer,
I believe, in unison with our ancient Friends, that it was the
garment in which he performed all his mighty works, or as Paul
expressed it, `Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy
Ghost, which is in you,' therefore he charged them not to defile
those temples. What is attributed to that body, I acknowledge
and give to that body, in its place, according as the
Scripture attributeth it, which is through and because of that which
dwelt and acted in it.
"But that which sanctified and kept the body pure
(and made all acceptable in him) was the life, holiness,
and righteousness of the Spirit. `And the same thing that kept
his vessel pure, it is the same thing that cleanseth
us.'35
"In reply to the second part of this query, I would
remark that I `see no need of directing men to the type for the
antitype, neither to the outward temple, nor yet to Jerusalem, neither
to Jesus Christ or his blood [outwardly], knowing that neither
the righteousness of faith, nor the word of it doth so
direct.'36
"The new and second covenant is dedicated with the
blood, the life of Christ Jesus, which is the alone atonement unto
God, by which all his people are washed, sanctified, cleansed,
and redeemed to God."37
Notes
1. Testimony of Jericho Monthly Meeting of Friends.
2. Barclay's Apology, Prop. VI.
3. Rom. i 19.
4. Letters of E. Hicks, New York, 1834, p. 25.
5. Ibid. p. 188.
6. Barclay's Apology, Prop. III.
7. Letters of E. Hicks, p. 215.
8. Answer to Six Queries, Letters of E. Hicks, p. 227.
9. Letters of E. Hicks, pp. 43-50.
10. Works of George Fox, IV, 3.
11. Letters Letters of E. Hicks, pp. 174-5.
12. These extracts may be found in "A Declaration,"
&c., published by order of the Yearly Meeting of
"Orthodox Friends," held in Phila., in the year 1828. For a refutation
of the charges contained in that Declaration, see a Review
by Wm. Gibbons, published by T. E. Chapman,
Philadelphia, 1847.
13. Works of I. Pennington, London, 1761, Vol I. p. 268.
14. Phila. Sermons, pp. 129, 130.
15. I. Pennington's Works, I. 13.
16. Phila. Sermon, p. 314.
17. Apology, Prop. III. §7.
18. Letters of E. Hicks, p. 213.
19. The Quaker, I. 56.
20. See, also, recapitulation in Chapter VII. Section 4.
21. Letters of E. Hicks, p. 55.
22. The Quaker, I. 68, 72.
23. Ibid. W. Penn, Vol. V. p. 385.
24. Antidote against the Venom of Snake in the Grass,
London, 1697, p: 191.
25. Letters of E. Hicks, pp. 76, 77.
26. John xiv. 16, 17, and xvi. 7.
27. Luke ii. 52.
28. Matt. iii. 16.
29. Letters of E. H., pp. 203, 204.
30. Letters of E. Hicks. pp. 54, 55.
31. Foster's Report, Vol. II. p. 422, being Exhibit No. 37, by
the orthodox party.
32. Letters of E. Hicks, p. 124 to 126.
33. Letters of E. Hicks, p. 170.
34. Quaker, Vol. I. p. 62
35. I. Pennington, Vol. III. p. 34.
36. G. Whitehead, Light and Life of Christ, Phila. ed. 1823,
p. 34
37. G. Fox. Doctrinals, p. 646, and Am. ed. Vol. V. p. 365.