The Beaconite Controversy

Abstract

70 BULLETIN OF FRIENDS' HISTORICAL SOCIETY THE BEACONITE CONTROVERSY.* Anna Braithwaite Thomas. The Beaconite Controversy took its name from a small book entitled " A Beacon to the Society of Friends," published in First month, 1835, by Isaac Crewdson, a minister belonging to Manchester Meeting, England. To quote from Joseph John Gurney's description, " This publication consisted of a running commentary on various passages in the sermons of the late Elias Hicks, of North America, who had been disowned by Friends in that country; and, with proofs, drawn from Scripture, of this preacher's perversions and delusions are mixed up many painful innuendoes, trenching, in various degrees, on our well-known views of the spirituality of the Gospel of Christ. Indeed," says J. J. Gurney, " it is my deliberate judgment that the work, professing as it does to defend sound Christianity, has an undeniable tendency to undermine the precious doctrine of the immediate teaching, guidance, and government of the Holy Spirit." Such was the Beacon itself in the eyes of one who sympathized fully with its author in his desire for pure evangelical teaching in the Society. The Controversy began in 1831, when a Tract Association in Manchester was broken up in consequence of doctrinal differences amongst the Friends interested, and culminated in the winter of 1836-37 in the resignation of Isaac Crewdson and of 48 other members of Manchester Meeting. This was followed in other parts of England by the resignation of about 250 Friends, many of them prominent members of the Society, making 300 in all who were lost to Friends through this lamentable schism.f Thus, roughly speaking, the Beacon Controversy was contemporary with the reign of William IV, i. e., 1830-1837, a period of such wonderful changes that it might truly be said that * Part of a paper read before the Haverford Round Table, Third month 15, 1909. t See J. S. Rowntree. " The Friend," London, vol. 40, p. 797. THE BEACONITE CONTROVERSY71 a new England was being born, not only politically and religiously but also in regard to material surroundings. The old methods of travel which had lasted unchanged for a thousand years were now giving way to the great revolutionary steam, with all the seething mass of changes in manufactures that were to follow. In politics the battle of parliamentary reform was being fought out and the anti-slavery struggle was at its height, and in the religious world the same spirit of unrest and change was at work. Barriers were giving way and the thoughts of outside minds were touching the Society as they had not done since the days of George Fox. The great separation of 1828 among Friends in America had not failed to have an important reflex action upon the Society in England, where the same sort of formal quietism had long prevailed and great stress had been laid on the discipline and upon the external peculiarities of dress and address. Throughout the eighteenth century meetings were very often silent, but, in such ministry as there was, great emphasis was laid upon immediate inspiration; ministers frequently declaring that they had come into the meeting with no idea as to what they might have to deliver. The notion prevailed that intellectual activity was inimical to this inspiration, hence much of the ministry was absolutely, as it professed to be, devoid of intellectual or even of rational thought. It consisted largely in exhortations to dwell deep, to turn away from all that was of human wisdom, to seek unto that light within, which, if followed, would lead to peace with God ; or in warnings against worldliness and denunciations of those who trusted in wealth and human learning. With the opening of the nineteenth century a new era had begun. The British and Foreign Bible Society was founded, and from the outset there were always one or two Friends upon its committee. Thus greater attention began to be directed to the Bible and more stress to be placed upon Scripture truth. Joseph John Gurney, Elizabeth Fry, Hannah Backhouse, Anna Braithwaite and others were gifted and eloquent ministers of this newer order whose clearer teaching was warmly welcomed and much appreciated by the...