Preaching or Silence?

 

In my sermon this week, which you will find on YouTube, I told the story of Stephen Grellet, a Quaker from the 1800s, who felt a great inner calling to tell lonely and  isolated people about God’s love and forgiveness.

I wrote to Katey a member of our local Society of Friends about preaching as we often think about Quakers having fairly silent meetings.

Katey wrote:

In the 17th century Quakers certainly preached. The date when George Fox began the movement in Lancashire is usually put at 1652. At that time the early Quakers preached out of doors and were not averse to taking over the pulpits in Anglican churches or preaching in the churchyard at a kind of 'rival' service. They had a literal belief in an imminent second coming and believed that Quakers were the people who saw the true light which they wanted to share with others.

 

They went out to evangelise all over Britain and also abroad. They modelled themselves on the early church and went out in twos - sixty of them (men and women) who were called the Valiant Sixty. This is probably how Quakerism first came to Hertford in the 1650s. As soon as Friends began to gather in Meeting Houses the practice of silent worship began. Although there have never been ordained clergy, experienced Friends would get up to minister, sometimes at great length and quoting extensively from the Bible.

           Hertford Quaker Meeting House celebrates 350 years this year

After the death of George Fox in 1691 the fervour died down and what was known as the 'quietist' period began. Persecution had ended and Quaker ministry focused on reinforcing Quaker principles within the Quaker community with very little emphasis on 'conversion'.

Early in the C19 Quakers became involved in the new evangelical movements and they re-entered the mission field and began to travel in the ministry to spread the Quaker faith and also with the aim of relieving suffering as we see in the anti-slavery and prison reform work with which Stephen Grellet was involved.

Their preaching was prompted more by a compulsion to share their own personal, inner revelatory experiences rather than an attempt necessarily to convert others to Quakerism.

 I imagine he was also inspired by the missionary fervour and concern for social justice of the early Quakers like Fox, Naylor and Penn (all three visited Hertford). He may also have identified on a personal level with Penn. Many early non-conformists were from fairly humble families but Penn was different as he was an educated member of the aristocracy (as was Stephen Grellet who came from the French aristocracy and escaped the French Revolution). 

 

By the way, modern British Quakers (known as liberal Quakers) are in a minority in the world. Many American, South American and African Quaker meetings have more in common with other evangelical churches than they do with British Quaker Meetings in that they have pastors, programmed worship and a strong emphasis on the Bible.

I shall pass through this world but once. Any good, therefore, that I can do or any kindness I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer it or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.  Stephen Grellet