Three Apostles of Quakerism: Popular Sketches of Fox, Penn and BarclayRhodes, Benjamin
History
Three Apostles of Quakerism: Popular Sketches of Fox, Penn and Barclay
Rhodes, Benjamin
Barclay, Robert, 1648-1690; Fox, George, 1624-1691; Penn, William, 1644-1718; Society of Friends
For this attendance at court he had to pay the penalty of being
suspected a Papist. At his very first public discussion with Vincent,
the nickname Jesuit had been given him and had stuck to him ever
after. The Quakers were many of them branded with the same opprobrious
name. In the case of Barclay, there was his early training and boyish
conversion to Romanism, and the fact that many of his family were
Catholics, to give plausibility to the charge. As to the body at large,
"it was believed that the doctrine of the inner light was taught by
Jesuit, and that a Franciscan friar had said no churches came so
near his own as the Quakers."[11] The Friends could not accept the
ordinary teaching of the supremacy of the Bible as a rule of faith,
and sometimes on this point their destructive criticism was welcome to
Catholics but galling to Protestants. Then they could not take the oath
of allegiance and supremacy. So the popular charge was not without some
plausible though utterly delusive pretexts.
[11] Penn himself writes "There is a people called 'the silent' or
'people of rest' in Italy, at Naples and at Rome itself, that come
near Friends; an inward people from all ceremonies and self-worship,
[he means worship unprompted and unaided by the Holy Spirit,] seekers,
the Pope and two cardinals favour them. A poor Spanish Friar, called
Molino, is the first of them. A thousand in Naples it is thought."--DR.
STOUGHTON'S LIFE, p. 228.
Now the impression that Penn was a Jesuit at heart, in spite of his
Quaker dress and profession, gained ground fast. Tillotson had his
fears that the charge was true, and said so; but on Penn assuring
him that there was no truth in the charge, he fully and honourably
apologised. But for long the suspicion clung to Penn and would not
be cast off. That he was determined in all things to keep a clear
conscience at all costs is manifest from his conduct in connection
with James' efforts to secure Magdalen College, Oxford, for one of
his tools. Penn had several times before strained his favour with the
king to the last point of endurance, until in one instance the king
threatened to turn him out of the room. In this case he wrote a letter
so bold and uncompromising as to fill us with amazement. He calls the
act one which could not in justice be defended. Such mandates as the
king addressed to the fellows he calls a force to conscience and not
very agreeable to his other gracious indulgences. Yet because in this
matter Penn at first, before he fully understood the case, thought some
concessions might be made by the College, Macaulay charges him with
simony of the very worst kind. The only other ground for such a charge
is the jesting remark of Penn to the deputation that waited on him at
Windsor. "If the Bishop of Oxford die, Dr. Hough may be made bishop.
What think you of that, gentlemen?" This might have been understood as
a hint that, if Dr. Hough would withdraw his opposition, it might be
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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