A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume 1: Taken from a View of the Education and Discipline, Social Manners, Civil and Political Economy, Religious Principles and Character, of the Society of FriendsClarkson, Thomas
Religion
A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume 1: Taken from a View of the Education and Discipline, Social Manners, Civil and Political Economy, Religious Principles and Character, of the Society of Friends
Clarkson, Thomas
Society of Friends
_Diversions of the field judged by the morality of the
New-Testament--the renovated man or christian has a clearer knowledge of
creation and of its uses--he views animals as the creatures of
God--hence he finds animals to have rights independently of any written
law--he collects again new rights from the benevolence of his new
feelings--and new rights again from the written word of revelation._
The Quakers try the lawfulness of these diversions again by the morality
of the New-Testament They adopt, in the first place, upon this occasion,
the idea of George Fox and of Edward Burroughs, which has been already
stated; and they follow it up in the manner which I shall now explain.
They believe that a man under the new covenant, or one who is really a
christian, is a renovated man. As long as Adam preserved his primeval
innocence, or continued in the image of his Maker, his spiritual vision
was clear. When he lost this image, it became dim, short, and confused.
This is the case, the Quakers believe, with every apostate or wicked
man. He sees through a vitiated medium. He sees of course nothing of the
harmony of the creation. He has but a confused knowledge of the natures
and ends of things. These natures and these ends he never examines as he
ought, but in the confusion of his moral vision, he abuses and perverts
them. Hence it generally happens, that an apostate man is cruel to his
brute. But in proportion as he is restored to the divine image, or
becomes as Adam was before he fell, or in proportion as he exchanges
earthly for spiritual views, he sees all things through a clearer
medium. It is then, the Quakers believe, that the creation is open to
him, and that he finds his creator has made nothing in vain. It is then
that he knows the natures of things; that he estimates their uses and
their ends, and that he will never stretch these beyond their proper
bounds. Beholding animals in this sublime light, he will appreciate
their strength, their capacities, and their feelings; and he will never
use them but for the purposes intended by providence. It is then that
the creation will delight him. It is then that he will find a growing
love to the animated objects of it. And this knowledge of their natures,
and this love of them, will oblige him to treat them with tenderness and
respect. Hence all animals will have a security in the breast of every
christian or renovated man against oppression or abuse. He will never
destroy them wantonly, nor put them to unnecessary pain. Now the Quakers
are of opinion, that every person, who professes christianity, ought to
view things as the man, who is renovated, would view them, and that it
becomes them therefore in particular, as a body of highly professing
christians, to view them in the same manner. Hence they uniformly look
upon animals, not as brute-machines, to be used at discretion, but as
the creatures of God, of whose existence the use and intention ought
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