Thomas Clarkson

“ That worship may exist without the intervention of words, on account of this constitution of the soul, is a sentiment which has been espoused by many pious persons who were not Quakers. Thus, the ever memorable John Hales, in his Golden Remains, expresses himself: "Nay, one thing I know more, that the prayer which is the most forcible, transcends, and far exceeds, all power of words. For St. Paul, speaking unto us of the most effectual kind of prayer, calls it sighs and groans, that cannot be expressed. Nothing cries so loud in the ears of God, as the sighing of a contrite and earnest heart." ”

“ Take therefore this principle away from them, and you take away their religion at once. Take away this spirit, and Christianity remains with them no more Christianity, than the dead carcass of a man, when the spirit is departed, remains a man. Whatsoever is excellent, whatsoever is noble, whatsoever is worthy, whatsoever is desirable in the Christian faith, they ascribe to this spirit, and they believe that true Christianity can no more subsist without it, than the outward world could go on without the vital influence of the sun. ”

“ If a man believes that baptism is an essential rite of the Christian church, the Quakers would not judge him if he were to go himself, or if he were to carry his children, to receive it. And if, at the communion table, he should find his devotion to be so spiritualized, that, in the taking of the bread and wine, he really and spiritually discerned the body and blood of Christ, and was sure that his own conduct would he influenced morally by it, they would not censure him for becoming an attendant at the altar. ”

“ Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die. I am the living bread, which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever. And the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." The Jews, therefore, strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat? Then Jesus said unto them, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. ”

“ Why should we consider our neighbour as an alien, and load him with reproaches, because he happens to differ from us in opinion about an article of faith? As long as there are men, so long will there be different measures of talents and understanding; and so long will they view things in a different light, and come to different conclusions concerning them. The eye of one man can see farther than that of another: So can the human mind, on the subject of speculative truths. This consideration should teach us humility and forbearance in judging of the religion of others. ”

“ This office of the spirit is beautifully described by Monro, a divine of the established church, in his just measures of the pious institutions of youth, "The holy spirit, says he, speaks inwardly and immediately to the soul. For God is a spirit. The soul is a spirit; and they converse with one another in spirit, not by words, but by spiritual notices; which, however, are more intelligible than the most eloquent strains in the world. God makes himself to be heard by the soul by inward motions, which it perceives and comprehends proportionably as it is voided and emptied of earthly ideas. ”

“ In the yearly meeting of 1763, they renewed their exhortation in the following words: "We renew our exhortation, that Friends every where be especially careful to keep their hands clear of giving encouragement in any shape to the slave-trade; it being evidently destructive of the natural rights of mankind, who are all ransomed by one Saviour, and visited by one divine light in order to salvation; a traffic calculated to enrich and aggrandize some upon the miseries of others; in its nature abhorrent to every just and tender sentiment, and contrary to the whole tenour of the Gospel." ”

“ Every Quaker-boy or girl, who comes into the world, must, however poor, if the discipline of the society be kept up, receive an education. All, therefore, who are born in the society, must be able to read and write. Thus the keys of knowledge are put into their hands. Hence we find them attaining a superior literal and historical knowledge of the scriptures, a superior knowledge of human nature, and a knowledge that sets them above many of the superstitions of those in their own rank in life. ”

“ People are not called upon to express their sorrow, for having married the objects of their choice, but for having violated those great tenets of the society, which have been already mentioned, and which form distinguishing characteristics between Quakerism and the religion of the world. Those, therefore, who say they repent, say no more than what any other persons might be presumed to say, who had violated the religious tenets of any other society to which they might have belonged, or who had flown in the face of what they had imagined to be religious truths. ”

“ It is remarkable again, that the rich have by no means their proportion of such servants. Those of the wealthy, who are exemplary, get them if they can. Others decline their services. Of these, some do it from good motives; for, knowing that it would be difficult to make up their complement of servants from the society, they do not wish to break in upon the customs and morals of those belonging to it, by mixing them with others. The rest, who mix more with the world, are, as I have been informed, fearful of having them, lest they should be overseers of their words and manners. ”

“ I am truly sorry, my kinsmen in the flesh, that you, who have always considered yourselves the elder and chosen branches of the family of the world, should have been passed over; and that the Gentiles, whom you have always looked upon as the younger, should be now preferred. But God is just—He will not sanction unrighteousness in any. Nor will he allow any choice of his to continue persons in favour, longer than, after much long suffering, he finds them deserving his support. ”

“ I may observe, therefore, that the circumstance of a more than ordinary profession of consistency, and not any supposed immorality on the part of the Quakers, has brought them, in the instances alluded to, under the censure of the world. Other people, found in the same trades or occupations, are seldom noticed as doing wrong. But when men are set as lights upon a hill, blemishes will be discovered in them, which will be overlooked among those who walk in the vale below. ”

“ Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out, to thy house? When thou seest the naked, that thou cover him, and that thou hide not thyself from thy own flesh?" This the Quakers believe to be the true fast, and not the work of a particular day, but to be the daily work of every real Christian. ”

“ For when we consider that the Quakers never partake of the amusements of the world; that their worldly pleasures are chiefly of a domestic nature; that calmness, and quietude, and abstraction from worldly thoughts, to which rural retirement is peculiarly favourable, is the state of mind which they themselves acknowledge to be required by their religion, it would seem that the country was peculiarly the place for their habitations. ”

“ As the Quakers neither allow of the tomb-stones, nor the monumental inscriptions, so they do not allow of the mourning garments of the world.
They believe there can be no true sorrow but in the heart, and that there can be no other true outward way of showing it than by fulfilling the desires, and by imitating the best actions, of those whom men have lost and loved. "The mourning, says William Penn, which it is fit for a Christian to have on the departure of beloved relations and friends, should be worn in the mind, which is only sensible of the loss. ”

“ The spectator too will be more likely, if he sees all go undistinguished to the grave, to deduce for himself the moral lesson, that there is no true elevation of one above another, only as men follow the practical duties of virtue and religion. But what serious reflections, or what lessons of morality, on the other hand, do the funerals of the world produce, if accompanied with pomp and splendour? To those who have sober and serious minds, they produce a kind of pity, that is mingled with disgust. ”

“ It is to many an endearing thought, that they shall lie after their death, near the remains of those whom they loved in life. But the Quakers, in general, have not thought it right or wise to indulge such feelings. They believe that all good men, however their bodies may be separated in their subterraneous houses of clay, will assuredly meet at the resurrection of the just. ”

“ When two persons of different religious principles, a Quaker for example, and a woman of the church, join in marriage, it is almost impossible that they should not occasionally differ. The subject of religion arises, and perhaps some little altercation with it, as the Sunday comes. The one will not go to church, and the other will not go to meeting. These disputes do not always die with time. They arise, however, more or less, according to circumstances. If neither of the parties set any value upon their religious opinions, there will be but little occasion for dispute. ”

“ For though there are undoubtedly some who have gone on so gradually in their reformation from vice to virtue, that it may have been considered to be the effect of reason, which has previously determined on the necessity of a holy life, yet the change from vice to holiness has often been so rapid and decisive, as to leave no doubt whatever, that it could not have been produced by any effort of reason, but only by some divine operation, which could only have been that of the spirit of God. ”

“ In the same manner as the Divine Being has scattered the seeds of plants and vegetables in the body of the earth, so he has implanted a portion of his own incorruptible seed, or of that which, in scripture language, is called the "Seed of the Kingdom," in the soul of every individual of the human race. As the sun by its genial influence quickens the vegetable seed, so it is the office of the Holy Spirit, in whom is life, and who resides in the temple of man, to quicken that which is heavenly. ”

“ The public worship of God is usually made to consist of prayer and preaching.
Prayer is a solemn address of the soul to God. It is a solemn confession of some weakness, or thanksgiving for some benefit, or petition for some favour. But the Quakers consider such an address as deprived of its life and power, except it be spiritually conceived. [127] "For the spirit helpeth our infirmities. For we know not what we should pray for as we ought. But the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered." ”

“ We all, says he, receive of his fulness grace for grace, as all the stars in heaven are said to light their candles at the sun's flame. For though his body be withdrawn from us, yet by the lively and virtual contact of his spirit, he is always kindling, cheering, quickening, warming, and enlivening hearts. Nay, this divine life begun and kindled in any heart, wheresoever it be, is something of God in flesh, and in a sober and qualified sense, divinity incarnate ”

“ These meetings excited at first the vigilance and anger of the magistrates; but when they came to see the regulations made by the Quakers, in order that none of their poor might become burthensome to their parishes, they went away—whatever they might think of some of their new tenets of religion—in admiration of their benevolence.
The Quakers of the present day consider their poor in the same light as their venerable elder, namely, as members of the same family, whose wants it is their duty to relieve; and they provide for them nearly in the same manner. ”

“ His work is life—The work of God is immortality, eternal life." "The most excellent thing, says Timoeus, that the soul is awakened to, is her guide or good genius; but if she be rebellious to it, it will prove her daemon, or tormentor." ”