Disownment and Doctrine.

The "separation" was accomplished in most meetings in the East by the withdrawal of the orthodox party, after which they set up new meetings for worship and discipline. In a minority of meetings the orthodox held the property and the organization, and the other Friends withdrew. At Jericho and Westbury the great majority of the members remained, and continued to occupy the old meeting-houses. The orthodox who separated from the Westbury and Jericho Monthly Meetings organized the Monthly Meeting of Westbury and Jericho, as has already been mentioned.

In 1829, when the new monthly meeting was formed, the membership of Westbury Monthly Meeting was as follows: Westbury Preparative Meeting, 193; Matinecock Preparative Meeting, 121; Cow Neck (now Manhassett), 65; total, 379. Of this number, accessions to the orthodox were: From Westbury Preparative Meeting, 32; Matinecock Preparative Meeting, 2; Cow Neck Preparative Meeting, 5; total, 39. In Jericho the members of the monthly meeting, Fifth month, 1829, numbered 225. Of this number, nine left to join the Monthly Meeting of Westbury and Jericho, and five were undetermined in their choice. Giving the latter meeting the benefit of the doubt, and assigning to it the five uncertain members, the meeting that disowned Elias Hicks was composed of fifty-three members, of whom thirteen were minors and five of only mild allegiance.

A simple mathematical calculation will show that the Monthly Meeting of Westbury and Jericho contained 10 per cent. of the Friends who had been members of the two original monthly meetings, which meetings still survived, retaining 90 per cent. of the members. These figures will throw suggestive light on what follows.

It was the Westbury and Jericho Monthly Meeting which, on the 29th of Fourth month, 1829, adopted the "testimony against Elias Hicks," called his disownment. It contained specified charges, which may be condensed as follows: He denied the influence or existence of an evil spirit; doubted the fall of man, and his redemption through Christ; endeavored to "destroy a belief in the miraculous conception of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ"; also rejected a "belief in his holy offices, his propitiatory offering for the redemption of mankind; and has denied his resurrection and ascension into heaven"; "he also denied his mediation and intercession with the Father." He was charged with too much industry in promulgating his views, causing great numbers to embrace them, "and has at length become the leader of a sect distinguished by his name." He was also charged with meeting with, and countenancing by his presence and conduct, those who had "separated" from Friends. This had reference to many meetings of a large majority of the Society held at various places in 1828. The "testimony" also alleges that he had many times been tenderly admonished and advised, but that he and his friends "prevented the timely exercise of the discipline in his case." It all, without doubt, sounded very formidable to the little company of Friends who formulated and issued the document.

This was a remarkable document in more ways than one. The meeting which issued it assumed an authority in conduct hard now to understand, and asserted as facts mere assumptions, and yet we are bound to believe that, in the main, they thought they were performing God's service. It must be remembered that the orthodox Friends, in 1829, everywhere operated on the theory that those who considered themselves "sound in doctrine," no matter how few in numbers, were the Society of Friends, in direct descent from the founders of the faith. It was their religious duty to excommunicate all whom they considered unsound, even though those disowned might constitute the overwhelming portion of the meeting. That this was the sincere conviction of the orthodox Friends all through the "separation" period, and also before and after it, is a demonstrable fact of history. There was also a marked disposition to adhere to tradition and to cling to former precedents. If there had ever been a time when Friends had been disowned on account of theological opinions, the practice should be kept up, and practically continued forever.

That there was a considerable amount of precedent for disowning Friends on points of doctrine is undoubtedly true. In the famous New Jersey Chancery trial, Samuel Parsons gave several cases of such disownment.[186] They involved cases in half a dozen monthly meetings, and included charges as follows: Denying the miraculous conception; denying the divinity of Jesus Christ; denying the authenticity of the Scriptures; promulgating the belief that the souls of the wicked would be annihilated.

The orthodox Friends might have done still better, and cited the case of John Bartram,[187] the father of American botany, who was disowned by Darby Monthly Meeting in 1758, for deistical and other unorthodox opinions. It has been supposed that Bartram was disowned by Friends for placing the following inscription over his door:

As this sentiment is dated twelve years after the disownment,[188] it is evident that it was not the primary cause of the action taken by Darby Monthly Meeting.

During the period of repression in the Society, lasting from about 1700 to 1850, it was not hard to find precedent for disowning members on almost any ground, so that the treatment of Elias Hicks, on account of alleged "unsound" doctrine calls for no complaint on the score of regularity. Disowning members for that cause in one branch of Friends to-day would be practically inconceivable. Its wisdom at any time was doubtful, and, in spite of precedents, the practice was not general.

The main point in this transaction, however, is that the meeting which issued the "testimony" against Elias Hicks had no jurisdiction in the case. As a matter of fact, he was never a member of the meeting in question, unless it be assumed that 10 per cent. of two monthly meetings can flock by themselves, organize a new meeting, and take over the 90 per cent. without their knowledge or consent.

In the main, we do not care to consider or discuss the points in the "testimony" under consideration. Those who have followed the pages of this book thus far will be able to decide whether the main causes as stated by those who prepared and approved the document were true in fact, and whether they would have constituted a sufficient reason for the action of the Monthly Meeting of Westbury and Jericho, had it possessed any authority in the case.

Just what Elias Hicks thought regarding the matter of Society and disciplinary authority in his case, we have documentary evidence. In a private letter he said: "For how can they disown those who never attended their meetings, nor never had seen the inside of their new-built meeting-houses, and who never acknowledged their little separate societies? Would it not be as rational and consistent with right order for a Presbyterian or a Methodist society to treat with and disown us for not attending their meetings, and not acknowledging their creed?"[189]

There is one point in the "testimony" which cannot so easily or reasonably be ignored. It says that Elias Hicks "has at length become the leader of a sect, distinguished by his name, yet unjustly assuming the character of Friends." From the assumed standpoint of those who made this statement of fact, it had no warrant. That body of Friends in, at least, the Yearly Meetings of New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, which at the time of the "separation" housed two-thirds of all the members, was as much entitled to be called Friends, and assume their "character," as the minority. The distinguishing epithet was not of their selecting or adoption, and those who applied it could scarcely with propriety force it upon those who did not claim it or want it. As for leadership, the outcome in 1827-28 was accomplished without either the presence or assistance of Elias Hicks in a majority of cases. If those who left the parent meetings and set up meetings of their own were the "separatists," then, in a majority of cases, the name belonged to the party that opposed Elias Hicks, and not to that body of Friends who objected to the Society being divided or perpetuated because of the personality or the preaching of any one man.

It has to be said that the disowning at the time of the "separation" was not all on one side. Jericho Monthly Meeting "testified against" at least four of the orthodox party. But in every such case, so far as we are aware, no charges regarding doctrine were made against any. The disownments took place because the persons involved had become connected with other meetings, and did not attend the gatherings of that branch of Friends who issued disownments. Both sides undoubtedly did many things at the time which later would have been impossible.

Elias Hicks evidently approved the general order of the Society in his time touching disownments. In a letter directed to "My Unknown Friend," but having no date, he deals with the disownment question. He goes on to say that it had been the practice of the Society to disown members for more than a century, when such members had deviated "from the established order of Society," and he reaches the conclusion that not to follow this course would lead to "confusion and anarchy." He then says: "These things considered, it appears to me the most rational and prudent, when a particular member of any society dissents in some particular tenet from the rest of that society, if such dissent break communion and render it necessary in the judgment of such society that a separation take place between them, that it be done in the same way, and agreeable to the general practice of such society in like cases."

It is quite certain, however, that Elias Hicks did not think that disputed points of doctrine offered a sufficient ground for disownment in the Society of Friends. In a letter to David Evans, written at Jericho, Twelfth month 25, 1829, he says: "I apprehend that if the Friends who took part in the controversy on the side of the miraculous conception, and those on the opposition, will fully examine both sides of the question, they will find themselves more or less in error, as neither can produce sufficient evidence to enforce a rational conviction on others.... Surely, then, we who believe in the miraculous conception ought not to censure our brethren in profession for having a different opinion from ours, and especially as we have no knowledge of the subject in any wise, but from history and tradition. Surely, then, both parties are very far off the true Christian foundation for keeping up the controversy, inasmuch as it never has had the least tendency to gather on the one hand or the other, but always to scatter and divide, and still has the same baneful tendency."

The reader will not fail to consider that at this late period Elias Hicks reiterates his personal belief in the miraculous conception, although the "testimony" of disownment against him charged that he was "endeavoring to destroy a belief in that doctrine." Whatever may have been his belief regarding the matter, it is clear that he did not consider acceptance or rejection of the doctrine a determining quality in maintaining a really Christian fellowship.