The Covenant Crucified: Quakers and the Rise of Capitalism (review)

Abstract

62Quaker History Bishop's first concern was the politics oftoleration. For its sake he again lobbied the succession ofradical governments in 1659. He was also one of the few Friends willing in 1659 to sign on as a Commissioner ofMilitia to defend "the good old cause" when invited by the radicals as they faced "the experience ofdefeat" ofa century ofpuritan hopes and twenty years under arms. Bishop thus became the favorite example of early Quakers as tired revolutionaries driven back into pacifism, in the eyes ofMarxist historians suchasChristopherHillandBarryReay,plusW. A. Cole,DavidUnderdown, and Austin Woolrych. Maryann Feola, in this book which was her doctoral thesis at CUNY, gives credit in many opening footnotes to this current orthodoxy of British historians. Like them, she is thorough and careful, notably in her search ofBristol city records and the London Public Records Office. She also ignores doctrines, including Marxism. Her two-page Epilogue promises to explore some day how "Bishop combined natural reason and the more quiet form of Quakerism" (p. 107) after 1660, in Bishop's tracts (13 out of29) which her book does not cover nor list. Her weakness is that in ignoring Quaker historians ofQuakerism (except Ingle and Braithwaite) she was unaware that Friends from the beginning saw the work ofthe Spirit ofGod & Christ in "the Lamb's War" as a fierce struggle to conquer evil, pride, and self-will within each person, thereby transforming lifestyles, church, and state. Bishop's tracts such as his Epistle ofLove to all the [Quaker] Saints (\661) and a 1662-63 series ofLittle Treatiseson Suffering, Glory, Election, and Resurrection, expounding ideas Friends had taught for a decade, were as apocalyptic as his warnings to the new King and Parliaments. He warned Friends that the proud anger which their life and messages aroused in their persecutors must first be overcome within themselves before the Spirit can conquer the world. Earlham College, emeritusHugh Barbour Arlington, Mass. The Covenant Crucified: Quakers and the Rise of Capitalism. By Douglas Gwyn. Wallingford, Pa.: Pendle Hill Publications, 1995. xxi + 403pp. Notes and index. Paper, $16. In concept, The Covenant Crucified book is a fine, thoughtful work, a testimony to the insights of a gifted scholar, one willing to call a spade a spade. One wishes for it a wider recognition than its publisher's imprimatur , little known outside the Quaker world, will likely bring it. Chapter 2, on "The Puritan Revolution and the Covenant ofGrace," is a model, one of the best introductions to the religious and secular context for Quakerism's Book Reviews63 rise that I have seen. Heavily influenced by Marx and his latter-day interpreters, Gwyn has as his principal target capitalism and the accompanying "contractual" liberalism that succeeded in subverting the "covenant ofLight," proclaimed by Friends in the 1650s. In sometimes difficultprose—he all but commodities the word "commodity," and this reader began listing words made redundant with Gwyn's favored prefix "re"—he says his goal is "Interrelating the perspectives of biblical apocalyptic and Marxist analysis" to understand the role of early Friends as capitalism was developing (356). Gwyn's big picture is compelling, and I applaud his courageous insistence that early Quakerism was essentially anarchistic when its followers proclaimed their "Day ofthe Lord." In his emphasis on the radicalism of the early Quaker movement, Gwyn's interpretation is squarely within the scope ofrecent historiography, even as his Quakers emerge as a sight more revolutionary than Christopher Hill's. Still, Gwyn never entirely escapes his theological background, and the reader is never quite sure whether to trust the historical evidence presented. His research techniques leave something to be desired, as becomes clear when one goes seeking for sources. For one example, on p. 310 Gwyn quotes extensively from a 1672 general meeting of Friends in Londonbutnever reveals his source. There is no bibliography, the notes are skimpy, and it is not clear that he has fully considered recent works, including my own. He is much more at home citing articles from Quaker Religious Thoughtthan important ones from thisjournal, even forhistorical information. My major problem with The Covenant Crucified is that, however correct, Gwyn's overall framework rests on debatable assumptions. His premise that capitalism was...