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The Hicksites’ and the Orthodox’s appeals to the authority of Penn to settle their disagreement point to a broader and even more significant disagreement than their doctrinal conflict: they claimed to represent the genuine intentions and beliefs of the founders of the Society of Friends. Their mutual desire for recognition as the actual successors to Quaker founders reveals the profundity of the stakes of their debates—the winners had the right to be called Friends and the losers, presumably, were lost down the wrong spiritual path. This argument over origins sheds light on how it was possible for such a large division to occur in the Society of Friends, because the conflict had gone beyond a disagreement among family members about a small doctrinal point and reached the point of deciding who even belonged in the family. In the end, the disagreement reflected irreconcilable differences about the role of revelation in the Quaker community with ethical implications about how to decide right from wrong.
Although the Hicksites included very little editorializing in reprinting, “Sandy Foundation Shaken,” they made it clear in their introduction that they staked a claim to be the rightful supporters of original Quakerism. The editors of this pamphlet pointed out that it was important for “ecclesiastical” groups to return occasionally to their “original principles” to ensure that they were living up to them.28 Naturally, the Hicksites had a
definite opinion about what the original principles of the Society of Friends were. They contended that the first Friends consisted of “religious and inquiring persons of the
28This kind of thinking was, and remains, not at all uncommon in the history of Protestant Christianity.
Indeed a number of American Protestant groups made similar claims about returning to the original principles of the “primitive church.” Richard T. Hughes, ed., The American Quest for the Primitive Church (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988).
different sects and denominations” who, “rejecting all creeds and confessions of faith… conformed to the teachings of the Holy Spirit…” They argued that these Quakers had agreed with Robert Barclay when he said, “the revelations of the Light within, were the only certain basis of all Christian faith.”29 Thus, the Hicksites thought that Quakers had
from the beginning relied solely on the guidance of the Inward Light and not on any particular doctrinal or creedal requirements.
By contrast, the evangelical authors of the “Defence” contended that they there the heirs of the first Friends. They argued that Hicks’ followers had mutilated,
manipulated, and selectively edited the writings of Penn, Robert Barclay, and others to change “the language and obvious meaning” of their words in order to make them agree with Hicks.30 In particular, they took issue with the Hicksite’s claim that early Friends
had rejected “all creeds and confessions of faith.” They pointed out that if the Quakers had joined together with the intention to eliminate the errors of other groups, they must have had some statement to that effect: in other words, a creed. They asked sarcastically, “Could the early Quakers have embraced or believed in any substantial truths, if they had rejected all belief?” They thought that it was absurd for the Hicksites to say that Quakers were persecuted for what they believed, if they did not have a cogent statement of those belief: “If the Quakers confessed no belief—if they owned no creed, if they declared no particular faith, the world could not know that they had any.”31 While this vitriol
deliberately misunderstood the spirit of the Hicksites’ statement, the authors of the
29“Sandy Foundation,” 3. Emphasis in original. 30“Defence,” iii
“Defence” had a good point: did it make sense for people who claimed that creeds and doctrines were not important to found their legitimacy on the doctrines of earlier Quakers?
After their initial, sarcastic attacks on Hicksite logic, the authors of the “Defence” asserted that Hicks’ claims to divine inspiration defied the practices of Quakerism’s founders. They drew a sharp contrast between the early Quakers’ and Hicks’ approaches to the Bible by pointing out that early Friends used the scriptures as “the test in all controversies with their opponents.” They argued that the founders rejected anything that conflicted with the teachings of scriptures, even “though offered under the sacred
sanction of inward, immediate revelation, they utterly rejected and denied.”32 The authors
of the “Defence” explained that though “the revelation of the Holy Spirit of Christ Jesus in the soul” was “the very corner stone” of their faith, they would not accept any
teachings that conflicted with scripture. The Hicksites, however, would listen to inward revelation, even when it conflicted with the known teachings of scripture—and this meant that they could not really be Quakers.33
In sum, the Hicksites and evangelical Friends disagreed about two major ideas when it came to their understanding of the first Friends. They had contradictory ideas about what it meant to rely on human understanding. For evangelicals, claiming new revelation that went “beyond the scriptures” was to rely on human understanding. For Hicksites, however, to hold to doctrines passed down from clergyman to clergyman was
32 Ibid vi-vii 33 Ibid viii
to rely on human understanding and study of the scriptures, rather than on divine direction. Both sides also stated that reliance on the Inward Light was central to their faith as Quakers, but each had a different view of how far to take the repudiation of the “outward” covenant that God had made with the Jews. Evangelicals still believed that Jesus’ death on the cross was a central part of God’s plan for salvation. For them, the crucifixion had ushered in the new inward dispensation of truth of the gospel. Hicks, by contrast, believed that Jesus’ death was an outward work that was only for the salvation of the Jews.
At the heart of these debates about what constituted genuine Quaker belief was a dispute about the role of revelation in authentic Quaker practice. This disagreement about revelation versus the scriptures did not form the bulk of the “Defence’s” explication. Nevertheless, it remained implicitly central to the rest of the pamphlet, because it was Hicks’ view of revelation that inspired his seemingly heretical doctrines. Indeed the Orthodox authors spent over three hundred pages detailing where Hicks’ followers had excised key passages that would have proven early Friends’ Protestant orthodoxy. Their errors was the result of adherence to the Inner Light alone. The authors of “Defence” reminded their readers that Hicks was not the first Quaker heretic to employ Penn’s work to support his or her cause. In fact, they noted that Hannah Barnard, a former Quaker minister, had also cited “Sandy Foundation Shaken” to support her cause, and she had been disowned for her heresy in 1802.34
34 Ibid 32. Barnard was disowned, as part of the Quaker “New Light” controversy at the turn of the century.
The Hicksites, in appealing to Penn, suggested that Hicks’ views were not heretical when compared to past Quakers. Hicks, however, went beyond this appeal to suggest that such disagreements about doctrine were not essential, as long as all Friends relied upon the Inner Light. For instance, in 1822, he wrote to Gideon Seaman to justify his belief that Jesus’ death was not necessary for salvation. To accusations that he had denied Jesus’ divinity, he replied that he had never said that Jesus was the child of Mary and Joseph alone. In an explanation that was more likely to alarm Gideon than comfort him, however, he insisted that he did not need to know who Jesus’ parents were at all. Instead, all that mattered about Jesus and others “that have long since gone to their eternal homes, is an account of their good, deeds, doctrines and upright example.” Even these records of their virtue would only “be useful” after they had been “clearly opened and evidenced in my own mind, by the same truths that enabled them to walk uprightly, or otherwise I have not right to believe what is reported concerning them.35 He claimed
that Gideon was missing the point by pressing the issue of Jesus’ divinity, and expressed disappointment that he had fallen prey to doctrines based only on “carnal” knowledge— reading the scriptures alone without the benefit of revelation. Hicks asserted that a revelation about Jesus in the present was all that he needed. To him, scripture without continuing inspiration from the Holy Spirit was a dead record.
scripture, rejecting passages of the Bible that did not represent God in a moral light. It is not surprising that some evangelical Friends might have seen similarities between her position and Hicks’. Pink Dandelion, An Introduction to Quakerism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 84; David W. Maxey, “New Light on Hannah Barnard, A Quaker ‘Heretic,’” Quaker History, vol. 78, no. 2 (1989): 61-86.
35 Elias Hicks to Gideon Seaman, 1822 5mo 3, Elias Hicks Manuscript Collection, Friends Historical
With that in mind Hicks clarified that doctrine—namely his views of Jesus’ parentage and role in salvation—were not essential to communal unity. Indeed in a letter to Thomas Willis (also cited by the authors of the “Defence”), Hicks decided that he could “feel the same flow of love and unity” with people who insisted on believing in the Virgin birth, and he was not sure he wanted them to “change their belief, unless [he] could give them much greater evidence than [he was] at present possessed of, as [he] consider[ed] in regard to our salvation, they are both non-essentials…”36 Ultimately, he
thought it was wrong to ask him, or anyone, to believe something about which they had no direct revelation. Regarding his own belief that salvation did not depend on Jesus’ death, he wrote to Edwin Atlee, “But if any of my friends have received any known benefit from any outward sacrifice, I do not envy them their privileges. But surely they would not be willing that I should acknowledge, as a truth, that which I have no kind of knowledge of.”37 For him, inward revelation took precedence above scripture—or at least
above traditional interpretations of scripture—even when the resulting views might be considered heretical by some.