Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th CenturiesJones, Rufus M. (Rufus Matthew)
Religion
Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries
Jones, Rufus M. (Rufus Matthew)
Mysticism; Reformers
Another interesting Quaker document furnishes a glimpse of the
"Behmenists" a dozen years later--at about the period when John Pordage
and Jane Leade were beginning to "wait together in prayer and pure
meditation." It is a Minute adopted by the London "Morning Meeting" of
Friends, "the 21st of ye 7th Month 1674." The occasion for action was
the reception of "an Epistle to the Behminists," written by Ralph
Frettwell of Barbadoes, at an earlier period "one of the Chief Judges
of the Court of Common-pleas" in the island. He had been stirred to
write for the same reason that impelled Anderdon, and his "Epistle"
called these partly spiritualized people, as he believed, to the fuller
Light, and warned them against the use of Baptism, and Bread and Wine,
and "the Pater Noster." The Minute of the Morning Meeting, which opens
with the words: "Deare freind R. F. in the Truth that never changeth
but changeth all who believe and obey it," records the decision of the
Meeting not to publish the Epistle, "wee haveing well weighed it in the
feare of God and in tender Care of Truth." The reason given in the
Minutes for not publishing the "Epistle" is, first, that "the writings
of J. B. reveal {233} a great mixture of light and darkness," and
indicate that he lived sometimes in the power of one and sometimes in
the power of the other, that God Himself has tried and judged the
Spirit of darkness, and that the Spirit of Light has already "come to
its own Centre and flows forth again purely"--presumably in the Quaker
movement.[73] As the Lord Himself has given judgment and has given
victory to the Principle of the Light, the publication of the "Epistle"
is unnecessary.
And, secondly, Frettwell, in calling the "Behmenists" from "the use of
Mediums," admits that at an earlier period of his life, before he
received the full Light, he "received light and peace" through these
external things. This seemed to the Meeting "too much giveing them
encouragement" to dwell in things which give "only drynesse and
barrenness," and they fear that "the ffoxes among them would take
advantage" of this aid and comfort.[74] It would appear that the
gravamen of the Quaker attack on the little sect was the failure of its
members to dispense with sacraments. At a later period, when the
"Philadelphian Society" was in full flower, an old-time pillar Quaker,
George Keith, then become a Churchman and "an apostate" in the eyes of
Friends, attacked the writings of Jane Leade on the ground that "she
wrote derogatory to the Humanity of Christ," _i.e._ the historical
Christ. Francis Lee took up vigorously the defence, and told George
Keith that he himself had taught again and again the same principle of
inward Light and inward Religion, that he had never yet publicly
renounced these early ideas of his, and that he of all men ought to
understand the meaning of a Christ within and of a "Still Eternity."[75]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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