The Search for Seventeenth Century Authority during the Hicksite Reformation

Abstract

The Search for Seventeenth Century Authority during the Hicksite Reformation H. Larry Ingle In matters of religious faith and conviction, the question of authority is always central—how is the faith defined? Historically within the western Christian tradition, there have been three approaches to solving this central question. The first evolved within the Roman Catholic Church and is characterized by granting final authority to the church, represented by the central figure within the organization, the Bishop of Rome, the pope. As all know, Roman Catholics aver that the pope is infallible and cannot err when speaking formally on matters of faith and morals. Secondly, the Protestant tradition begins and ends with the scriptures, the Bible, even though Martin Luther, who set the Protestant movement going, insisted that "the just shall live by faith alone (Romans 1:17)." Of course, this solution only begs the question because someone must have the authority to affirm which interpretation, among the many that are possible, is the correct one. Quakers draw from an approach more mystical and individualistic, but like other Protestants they have still not escaped the problem of who determines among the myriad and idiosyncratic possible interpretations which one is correct. Moreover, as in the other traditions, there are different emphases at different times, meaning that over time there is a lack of consistency. (Here I might add that this evolution in the Quaker message demands that those seeking to understand it can hardly avoid a historical approach, lest they distort their findings.1 What George Fox thought in, say, 1654, was likely a bit different from his views thirty years later; certainly external events influenced his thought at any given time.) Such changes also make the tradition a rich one, supplying in day-to-day solutions to the fundamental problem ofauthority precedents that adherents in the future may use for their purposes, both political and personal. In this sense, the conflict between the so-called "Hicksites" and the so-called "Orthodox" after 1819 was a disagreement over which side interpreted their common heritage correctly. What they actually did, as we shall see, was to draw on different emphases in the historical record they possessed, so that each side legitimately claimed to be correct. Thus we must first turn to examine the broad outlines ofthe seventeenthcentury Quaker convictions that later Friends mined for their partisan purposes. (I add, again parenthetically, that most people who explore the past—present company excepted of course!—go to it with a preconceived approach that they want to vindicate and support. Few are unbiased, objective observers; this was certainly true ofthe Hicksites and the Orthodox .) Seventeenth-century Quaker thought and practice fall easily into two The Search for Seventeenth Century Authority69 periods for our purposes: the first, and in my opinion the more innovative and creative ofthe two, included the years up to the Stuart Restoration of 1 660; the second occurred after 1 660 and reached its high point in 1 666 with the Testimony of the Brethren, which in a typically conservative fashion sought a way to consolidate earlier gains while preserving the institutions of the faith. Those who worked during the first period were creating a movement that some ofthem liked to refer to a bit grandly as the "Lamb's War."2 Those who offered leadership during the second period, including George Fox, sought to distance themselves from what they now regarded as the excesses ofthe earlier period and created an organizational structure that would hem in those who might, as Fox phrased it, "run out" and follow individual leadings. The conflict with James Nayler, which was Fox's first major internal challenge in the mid- 1650s, offered the First Friend more than a hint of what was to come, and he began to institute a system of church government that would subordinate any potential dissidents to the larger body of Friends. But that effort would turn out to be a will-o'-the wisp in comparison to the heady hopes ofFox and his fellow believers that they had a real chance of becoming England's dominant religious group during the Cromwell Interregnum. After Nayler's humiliation, the lack ofan immediate continuing need...