Edward Grubb was a British Friend whose life spanned the late 19th and
early 20th centuries. He published a book in 1917 entitled, "What
is Quakerism?" (Headley Bros., London, 244 pp) that has been largely
forgotten. Although it is true that the Religious Society of
Friends has published many books and pamphlets on that topic, some of
the insights that Grubb shared are still fresh and relevant
today. Even if we might not agree with all of Grubb's opinions,
his thoughtful views of the Society of Friends are still useful and
should make us all think about what we are today, compared to first,
what we were, and second, what they hoped at that time we would become
now. The following passage is from his book.
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A few words seem to be needed here as to the relation of the Inward
Light to human Reason and Conscience. It is well to recognize
that the word Reason, like many more, is used in different
senses. Sometimes it means the power in man by which he
recognizes anything as
true,
whether in the domain of fact or in that of beauty or worth; and in
this sense it may be regarded as one of the operations of the Inward
Light. For we have come to understand something that was hardly
appreciated by most of the early Friends: that every
true and
worthy
thought is a repetition of the Divine thought, that it is not mans
only but Gods: so that right Reason within us is the working of His
Spirit and not merely our own. But in another sense the word
Reason stands for the purely intellectual process of
reasoning--as
when we infer that the tides are caused by the attraction of the moon,
or that the angles of every triangle are equal to two right
angles. And this intellectual process, while it certainly, when
rightly conducted, gives us truth in relation to the outward world, can
never yield up to us the highest and most important truth of all.
It brings us no sense of beauty or final worth, no insight into
goodness, no conviction of personal character, no inward revelation of
God. As Bergson has powerfully shown, it stands in contrast with
the intuition whereby we may gain some first-hand acquaintance with
the inner reality of the universe. This distinction should be
borne in mind when we read in Quaker writings that the Light of God
within us must not be confused with human reason, or that it is not
natural to man as man.
So again with regard to Conscience. That is another word that has
various meanings. Sometimes it stands for the perception of the
difference between right and wrong, and the conviction that it is
always our duty to follow the right and avoid the wrong, wherever this
may lead us. In this sense it is another operation of the Inward
Light. But it also stands for the belief that
some particular
kinds of action are right and others wrong: as that we ought not to
steal or kill, to hold slaves, to have more than one wife, to do
business on Sunday, and so forth. In this sense it is largely the
product of our education and social surroundings; and what is thought
right by some people in one country may be thought wrong by others of
another race or nation. The patriarchs in the Old Testament had
little if any conscience against polygamy, or holding slaves, or
killing their enemies of another nation. And to make conscience
in this sense the Voice of God
within us is to lay ourselves open to the objection that, if it appears
that God tells one set of people to do things that He forbids others to
do, it is very doubtful whether He speaks to men at all.
The answer to this objection is to be found by observing the process in
history whereby the human conscience has been gradually educated to a
truer standard of right and wrong. Just as there is a true
standard of beauty, though a child may prefer brilliant colours and
crude forms to a real work of art, so there is a true order of morals,
to which the human race is gradually rising. How did people find
out, for example, that slavery is wrong? Mainly because some one
person, like John Woolman, or some few people, rose above the common
standard of their day--because the Inward Light convinced them that
what was commonly held to be right was not really so. The only
reason why their views prevailed was that, when once it was pointed
out, others began to see it too--the Inward Light in them convinced
them also that it was wrong to use other people simply as means for
their own advantage: that every person, whether black or white, ought
to be regarded as an end in himself and not merely as a means.
Thus the Light of God in men educated their conscience in the matter of
Slavery; and we believe it will, if they faithfully follow it, do the
same in regard to War, and to the manifold evils of our social and
industrial conditions.
It is, I hope, quite clear from what has been said above that faith in
the Inward Light did not mean that everyone must do that which was
right in his own eyes, and that there was no common moral
standard. The Light was the Light of
Christ,
who was reproducing His own Spirit and way of life in His
follwers. Fox, says Herbert G. Wood, did not stand merely or
chiefly for the general principle of the Inner Light; he bore witness
to the Inner Light as expressed in clear moral judgements and in a
developing moral experience.