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Quakerism understood in relation to Calvinism: The theology of George Fox

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 August 2017

Hugh Rock
Hugh Rock*
Affiliation:
Loddon Park Farmhouse, Twyford RG10 9RY, UK, [email protected]
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Abstract

This article starts from the position that Quakerism has yet to be properly located within the firmament of Christian theology. A new starting point is proposed in the relation to the historical environment of Calvinism, the effect of which is to place Quakerism within the ancient stand-off between Augustine and Pelagius. In the article's first part, four theological propositions taken from the Journal of George Fox are first contrasted with propositions from John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion and then correlated with those of James Arminius to confirm the Pelagian nature of the theology. The second part of the article departs from particular doctrinal elements and attempts to grasp the contrasting characters of Quakerism and Calvinism.

Keywords

James ArminiusJohn CalvinGeorge FoxSynod of DortWestminster ConfessionEdward Worsdell
Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 70 , Issue 3 , August 2017 , pp. 333 - 347
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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References

1 Rufus Jones framed Quakerism as a religion emerging from the mystical tradition. Studies in Mystical Religion (London: Macmillan, 1909). This interpretation pervaded the other five volumes of the Quaker History Series. Geoffrey Nuttall framed Quakerism as a logical development of Puritanism in The Holy Spirit in Puritan Faith and Experience (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1947). Douglas Gwyn claimed Quakerism as an apocalyptic religion in Apocalypse of the Word: The Life and Message of George Fox (Richmond: Friends United Press, 1986); cf. Pink Dandelion's agreement in An Introduction to Quakerism (Cambridge: CUP, 2007), p.4. Rex Ambler and Patricia Williams give panentheist renditions; see Ambler, The Quaker Way (Winchester: John Hunt Christian Alternative, 2013)Google Scholar, and Williams, Quakerism: A Theology for our Time (West Conshohocken: Infinity, 2008)Google Scholar. Carol Spencer reworks the mystical explanation with her proposal of holiness/perfection as the paradigm in ‘Holiness: The Quaker Way of Perfection’, in Pink Dandelion (ed.), The Creation of Quaker Theory (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004). Hadley, Rachael King discovered that Fox stood in contradiction to Calvin, but the theology was outside the scope of her thesis in George Fox and the Light within (Philadelphia: Monthly Meeting, 1940)Google Scholar.

2 The Journal of George Fox, ed. John Nickalls (Cambridge: CUP, 1952), p. 418.

3 Ibid., p. 91.

4 Ibid., p. 68.

5 Ibid., pp. 4–5.

6 Ibid., p. 538.

7 Barclay, Robert, An Apology for the True Christian Divinity (Farmington, ME: Quaker Heritage Press, n.d.)Google Scholar.

8 Pettegree, Andrew, ‘The Spread of Calvin's Thought’, in McKinn, Donald (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to John Calvin (Cambridge: CUP, 2004), p. 210 Google Scholar.

9 Nuttall, The Holy Spirit. Cf. Hugh Barbour, The Quakers in Puritan England (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1964)Google Scholar.

10 Fox, Journal, p. 419.

11 Tyacke, Nicholas, The Anti-Calvinists: The Rise of English Arminianism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), p. 23CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 Ibid., p. 1.

13 Pettegree, ‘Spread of Calvin's Thought’, p. 210.

14 Porter, H. C., Reformation and Reaction in Tudor Cambridge (Cambridge: CUP, 1958), p. 374Google Scholar.

15 Ibid., p. 297.

16 Tyacke, The Anti-Calvinists, p. 87.

17 Ibid.

18 Macpherson, John, ‘Introduction’, to The Confession of Faith, ed. Dods, Marcus and Whyte, Alexander (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1882), p. 26.Google Scholar

19 Warfield, Benjamin, Calvin and Augustine (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1956), p. 295Google Scholar.

20 Fox, Journal, p. 323.

21 Ibid., p. 285.

22 Ibid., p. 176.

23 Ibid., p. 39.

24 Ibid., p. 18.

25 Ibid., p. 32.

26 Ibid ., p. 226.

27 Ibid., p. 284.

28 Fox, Journal, p. 316.

29 Calvin, John, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2 vols., trans. Beveridge, Henry (London: James Clarke & Co., 1962)Google Scholar, vol. 1, p. 28.

30 Ibid., p. 231.

31 Ibid., p. 257.

32 Canons of Dort, 1.7. http://archive.is/KpSPI (archived from http://www.spurgeon.org/~phil/creeds/dort.htm). Accessed April 2016.

33 Canons of Dort, 1.4; 2.6; 3/4.7; 5.2.

34 The Westminster Confession of Faith, ed. Marcus Dods and Alexander Whyte (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1882), p. 48.

35 Fox, Journal, p. 497.

36 Calvin, Institutes, vol. 2, p. 202.

37 Ibid., vol. 1, p. 462.

38 Ibid., vol. 2, p. 247.

39 Fox Journal, p. 666.

40 Ibid., pp. 352, 358.

41 Calvin Institutes, vol. 2, p. 42.

42 Ibid., vol. 1, p. 251

43 Ibid., vol. 2, p. 80.

44 Ibid., vol. 1, p. 517.

45 Fox, Journal, p. 354; cf. p. 52: ‘And so they committed me as a blasphemer and as a man that had no sin.’

46 Ibid., p. 688.

47 Fox, Journal, p. 33.

48 Calvin, Institutes, vol. 1, chapter heading IX.

49 Ibid., vol. 1, p. 66; cf. vol. 2, p. 205: ‘Scripture is the school of the Holy Spirit, in which as nothing useful and necessary to be known has been omitted, so nothing is taught in it but what it is important to know.’

50 Fox, Journal, p. 445.

51 Calvin, Institutes, vol. 2, p. 251.

52 The Writings of James Arminius, trans. James Nichols and W. R. Bagnall (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1977), vol. 1.

53 Porter, Reformation and Reaction, p. 283.

54 Calvin, Institutes, vol. 1, p. 40.

55 Ibid., p 41.

56 Benjamin Warfield, ‘John Calvin the Theologian’, in Warfield, Calvin and Augustine.

57 Worsdell, Edmund, The Gospel of Divine Help (London: Samuel Harris & Co., 1888), p. 110Google Scholar.

58 Calvin, Institutes, vol. 2, p. 244.

59 Ibid., p. 243.

60 Worsdell, Gospel of Divine Help, p. 25.

61 Ibid., p. 32.

62 Calvin, Institutes, vol. 2, p. 247.

63 Worsdell, Gospel of Divine Help, p. 74.

64 Fox, Journal, p. 5.

65 Ibid., p. 660.

66 Ibid., p. 29.

67 Ibid., p. 688.

68 Ross, Isabel, Margaret Fell: Mother of Quakerism (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1949), p. 10Google Scholar.

69 Calvin, Institutes, vol. 1, p. 70.

70 Ibid., p. 42.

71 Ibid., vol. 2, p. 225.

72 Ibid., p. 227.

73 Ibid., pp. 226–7.

74 For notable examples, Peter Baro (1534–99, England). Moses Amyraut (1596–1664, France). Nicholas Hemingius (1513–1600, Denmark).

75 Worsdell, Gospel of Divine Help, p. 14.

76 Ibid., Prefatory Note.

77 Calvin, Institutes, vol. 2, p. 227.