Planting Seeds

The Religious Society of Friends was born in seventeenth-century England. Historians date the birth to 1652, when a young man in his late 20s brought a message of hope—the promise of the immediate presence of God—to a community waiting in silence. Frances Howgill, who was there, later wrote

. . . and God, out of his great love and great mercy, sent one unto us, a man of God, one of ten thousand, to instruct us in the way of God more perfectly; which testimony reached unto all our consciences and entered into the inmost part of our hearts, which drove us to a narrow search, and to a diligent inquisition concerning our state, through the Light of Christ Jesus. The Lord of Heaven and earth we found to be near at hand and, as we waited upon him in pure silence, our minds out of all things, his heavenly presence appeared in our assemblies, when there was not language, tongue nor speech from any creature. The Kingdom of Heaven did gather us and catch us all, as in a net, and his heavenly power at one time drew many hundreds to land.[1]

George Fox, the “one of ten thousand,” was twenty-eight years old. While England was engaged in civil wars[2]—wars in which the rights of kings did battle with the rights of citizens and in which the armies were driven by religious fervor—he had been traveling around England for nine years. Fox left his family at the age of nineteen, searching . . . for something. Today we would say he wanted a guru, but in his years of wandering, he found many who had ideas about God, but no one who seemed to answer his searching questions. Remembering this time in his life years later, he said that he struggled with “a strong temptation to despair,”[3] but the Spirit was continually teaching him. He learned that education, institutions, books, pretty words, and experts were not sufficient—in fact, he learned that he was not sufficient. He described his turning point as follows:

As I had forsaken all the priests, so I left the separate preachers also, and those called the most experienced people. For I saw there was none among them all that could speak to my condition. And when all my hopes in them and in all men were gone, so that I had nothing outwardly to help me, nor could tell what to do, then, O then, I heard a voice which said, “There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition,” and when I heard it my heart did leap for joy. Then the Lord did let me see why there was none upon the earth that could speak to my condition, namely that I might give him all the glory. For all are concluded under sin, and shut up in unbelief, as I had been, that Jesus Christ might have the pre-eminence, who enlightens, and gives grace and faith and power. Thus when God doth work, who shall let [prevent] it? And this I knew experimentally.

My desires after the Lord grew stronger, and zeal in the pure knowledge of God and of Christ alone, without the help of any man, book, or writing. For though I read the Scriptures that spoke of Christ and of God, yet I knew him not but by revelation, as he who hath the key did open, and as the Father of life drew me to his Son by his spirit.[4]

For the next five years, Fox roamed the country, debating, convincing, offending, growing. In the churches of the time, a period was often provided after the sermon for comment from the congregation. Fox was not discreet. Blunt in his expression, he was often thrown out of the building and beaten by some members of the congregation even while his message reached others. He was arrested for the first time, and he refused a commission in the army that would have gotten him out of prison. He met many who became leaders in what became the Religious Society of Friends, among them Elizabeth Hooton, James Nayler, William Dewsbury, and Richard Farnsworth. He was called a Quaker for the first time, and he called the “tender” people he met “Friends.”[5] Still, it was not until 1652 and his meeting with the Seekers in the north of England that the society as we know it began to take shape. It was there that his message was heard and taken to heart by an entire community. This community already practiced worship in silence, with the freedom to speak given to all whom the Spirit moved. It was there that a message of individual authority—“you have an inward teacher”—found a context and practice in which the Inward Teacher spoke to all and deepened all.

From their base in the north of England, convinced Friends fanned out, first across England and then to the rest of the Western world, leading to explosive growth on the part of the Society and suspicion on the part of everyone else. It is impossible to have a feel for this time in our history without having some understanding of early Quakers’ inner fire and the consequences they bore. John Camm and John Audland evangelized Bristol, with meetings of from 3,000 to 4,000 people attending regularly in a local orchard. John Camm died, of tuberculosis, within two years of the start of his ministry, and John Audland also died young, his health damaged by the rigors of his work. Elizabeth Fletcher died at nineteen as a result of a beating by students at Oxford. Richard Hubberthorne and Edward Burrough died in jail, having imprisoned for preaching. Francis Howgill died after five and a half years in jail for refusing to take a loyalty oath. William Dewsbury spent more than nineteen years in prison for preaching. In 1660, Mary Fisher, a servant in a Quaker household, took a message to the Sultan of Turkey in the midst of his army and returned. Much of the journey was on foot, and many along the way either refused to help her or tried to force her to turn back. Four years earlier, she and Anne Austin had been jailed in Boston for five weeks. A local churchman paid the jailer to feed them, or they would have starved. Massachusetts became rigidly punitive, beating, banishing, and executing Quakers, until Charles II took away the colony’s right to do so. William Robinson, Marmaduke Stephenson, and Mary Dyer stood together at the scaffold in 1659. Dyer got a reprieve at the request of her son. Still under obedience to preach in Boston, she returned a year later, but this time no reprieve was granted.

Friends had other problems besides those that arose from opposing the established churches. Testimony was not allowed in court without an oath, so Friends could be robbed with impunity. In many cases the robbers went free while the Friends were jailed for refusing to swear. Later, the crown gained the ability to confiscate property from anyone refusing to swear an oath of loyalty, and Friends (including Margaret Fell and George Fox) were hauled into court on various pretexts so that they could be put in the position of having to take the oath.

These are just some examples of the sufferings of Quakers endured for carrying out their testimonies in their lives. Nevertheless, by 1690 there were some 60,000 Friends in Britain.

Margaret Fell, mistress of Swarthmore Hall and at first somewhat protected by her position as the wife of a judge, maintained correspondence with many of the far-flung missionaries and managed the Kendal Fund, which helped to support Friends’ evangelical work. The Valiant Sixty traveled in pairs, meeting occasionally with others to plan missions and spread the word. Over time, however, this personal network became insufficient for dealing with the issues that arose as the result of the exploding population of enthusiasts. There were a number of controversies—some religious and some political—that could have harmed the Society. These led to the development of a system of local and regional meetings for business and discipline (see the Organization of the Society chapter for more details).

In the developments in the first fifty years, one can see the seeds of our modern religious society planted—with all its diversity of thought, conflict over the source of authority, and strong social testimonies. Women were in evidence as strong leaders; as a matter of fact, early attacks on Friends included the charge that their old men sat silently by while serving girls preached. Use of plain speech and plain dress began during this time, driven by a self-proclamation of honesty and a discipline of simplicity. The denial of outward wars that became our peace testimony began when George Fox refused to accept a commission in the army as a way out of jail and developed through the end of the century as the Society defended itself against charges of fomenting violent rebellion while individual Friends discovered themselves unable to plan bombardments and quit their duties in the military.[6] The first general advices were written at Balby in 1656, along with an admonition to pay attention to the Spirit behind the advices and not just the letter of them.[7] Controversies over leadings by the Spirit were resolved in favor of discernment within the community, this discernment addressing the challenge of leaving all Friends open to the Spirit’s possibility and at the same time checking rampant, egoistic individualism.

What the world knows today as civil disobedience, Friends practiced by holding open meetings for worship in contradiction of the law and suffering the consequences—eventually leading to the Act of Toleration and acceptance of the idea that people within a nation could differ over spiritual matters and remain good neighbors and loyal citizens. In his letter to the governor of Barbados in 1671, George Fox  argued for a familial obligation for spiritual education between master and slave (mistaking slavery for service), but only seventeen years later, four Friends in the Germantown Meeting sent a minute to their business meeting challenging all who associated with slavery to defend it.[8] (Unfortunately, we also find in this event evidence of other aspects of our Society. The minute was passed from monthly meeting to quarterly meeting to yearly meeting, where it was decided that the question was too complicated and no action was taken. From the time of Fox’s Barbados letter, it took American yearly meetings approximately 100 years to decide that involvement in any way with slaveholding was an occasion for disownment. Curiously, this happened at about the same time as the United States declared its independence from Britain. New England’s minute is dated 1773, Philadelphia’s 1774, and Baltimore’s 1777.