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In Praise of Quakers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 October 2024

H. W. J. Edwards
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In the year 1924 the Society of Friends, which cherishes an ancient ‘testimony’ against the celebration of special days, waived its scruples to celebrate the birth of George Fox, who, if not exactly the founder, was the coherer of those wandering souls who became known as Quakers.

About the time the Quakers [I must be forgiven if from time to time I call them Friends] are, if not celebrating, at least turning their minds to the tercentenary of their existence as a religious body. I believe also that other religious bodies, especially Christian bodies, will according to their capacity give thanks to God for the Quakers. Even that Christian body to which I have been given the grace to belong, that body without which there could not be in any sense a Christian body, very properly and without retracting in the slightest degree from her witness to herself as Christ’s one and undivided Church outside which there is no salvation, may rejoice.

Strictly and narrowly the thing called Quakerism is a heresy and as such it must be condemned and detested. As a Catholic I abjure with all my heart and mind the heresy of Quakerism. Yet very few Quakers are heretics. They are not because very few have received the sacrament of baptism. Those who have received it are those who have joined the Society of Friends from some Christian group which gives valid baptism. Looking at the Society of Friends still in this narrow way, we may doubt whether it is, in fact, a Christian body at all.

Type
Research Article
Information
Blackfriars , Volume 29 , Issue 342 , September 1948 , pp. 408 - 417
Copyright
Copyright © 1948 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

References

1 Also the Dominicans, Henry Suso, Nicholas of Strasburg—not to be confused with Nicholas of Basle, a Waldensian—and of course Eckhart.

2 The early Friends regarded their message in such terms as to explain the title of Penn's book, Primitive Christianity Revived.

3 He is also freely accused by Friends of being subject to the dualism of Descartes.

4 Although, the Hicksite schism brought, in the United States the Socinian element in the Society on Hick's side, the schism had nothing much to do with a trini-tarian controversy. It was really a revolt against the discipline of the Elders.

5 Hicks, for example, denied that, the Blood spilt outside the walls of Jerusalem was of any avail to mankind.