a disciple of
Elias Hicks, we can get some insight as to her religious faith by a
few extracts from different points in his creed as stated by himself.
In one of his sermons he says:
As many as are led by the Spirit of God they are the sons of God.
What is the Spirit of God? It is the light and life in the soul
of man. All that men and books can do is to point us to this
great principle which is only to be known in our own souls. The
way to arrive at a knowledge of this divine love and divine
light, and to fulfill the whole law, is to love all the creation
of God, and do right to all men and beasts.
Again he speaks of the divine love and divine light which he says
are one, indivisibly one. The Lord is love, and love may be
considered as comprehending all His power and all His wisdom; but
goodness is the most proper term that we can apply. Every one, he
says, is enlightened by the same divine light that enlightened
Jesus, and we receive it from the same source. He had the
fullness of it as we have our several allotments. All the varied
names given in Scripture to this divine light and life such as,
"Emmanuel," "Jesus," "Sent of God," "Great Prophet," "Christ our
Lord," "Grace," "Unction," "Anointed," mean one and the same
thing, and are nothing less nor more than the spirit and power of
God in the soul of man as his Creator, Preserver, Condemner,
Redeemer, Saviour, Sanctifier, and Justifier.
The Hicksites differed from the other Friends in that they placed the
light within above all external authority, while the Orthodox Friends
make the Scriptures the surer guide, though some make the written word
and inner light of equal authority. In a letter to John C. Sanders, in
1828, Elias Hicks says:
Not all the books ever written, nor all the miracles recorded in
the Scriptures, nor all other external evidence of what kind
soever, has ever revealed God (who is an eternal invisible
Spirit) to any one of the children of men. Heaven is not a fixed
place above, nor hell below, but both are states of the soul. The
blood of Christ shed upon the cross has no more power to cleanse
us from sin than the blood of bullocks and rams poured out on
Jewish altars could cleanse that people from their sins. We must
know Christ within us to save us from sin; men depend so much on
the crucif
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