CHAPTER II.
THE INNER LIGHT.
The one corner-stone of belief upon which the Society of Friends is built is the conviction that God does indeed communicate with each one of the spirits He has made, in a direct and living inbreathing of some measure of the breath of His own life; that He never leaves Himself without a witness in the heart as well as in the surroundings of man; and that in order clearly to hear the Divine voice thus speaking to us we need to be still; to be alone with Him in the secret place of His presence; that all flesh should keep silence before Him.
This belief may be more precisely stated, explained, and as we think justified, by those who are competent to deal with it in a philosophical manner. The founders of our Society were not philosophers, but spoke of these things from an intense and abundant personal experience, which led them with confidence to appeal to the experience of all sorts and conditions of men for confirmation of their doctrine as to the light within. And they were not disappointed. The history of the sudden gathering of the Society, of its rapid formation into a strongly organized body, and of the extraordinary constancy, zeal, and integrity displayed by its original members, is a most impressive proof of the trueness of their aim.[3]
I have no ambition to clothe the fundamental doctrine of our Society in any less popular language than that in which it was originally preached. I would rather, even did necessity not compel me, be content to appeal, as did the early Friends, to common experience. My aim is to explain for practical purposes, and in modern as well as simple language, the way in which our whole constitution as a Society, and our various special testimonies, have resulted from this one main principle.
When questioned as to the reality and nature of the inner light, the early Friends were accustomed in return to ask the questioners whether they did not sometimes feel something within them that showed them their sins; and to assure them that this same power, which made manifest, and therefore was truly light, would also, if yielded to, lead them out of sin. This assurance, that the light which revealed was also the power which would heal sin, was George Fox’s gospel. The power itself was described by him in many ways. Christ within, the hope of glory; the light, life, Spirit, and grace of Christ; the seed, the new birth, the power of God unto salvation, and many other such expressions, flow forth in abundant streams of heartfelt eloquence. To “turn people to the light within,” to “direct them to Christ, their free Teacher,” was his daily business.
For this purpose he and his friends travelled continually up and down the country, holding meetings everywhere, and finding a never-failing response to their appeal, as is proved by the bare numbers of those who, within a very few years, were ready to encounter persecution, and to maintain their testimony through long years of imprisonment and sufferings. In the earlier days of the Society the doctrine of the inner light was clearly one readily understood and accepted by the ordinary English mind. In our own day it is usually spoken of as a mysterious tenet, springing up now and again in the minds of isolated enthusiasts, but indigenous only in Oriental countries, and naturally abhorrent to the practical common sense of our own people.
The difference arises, I think, from the fact that there are circles within circles, or spheres within spheres, and that the light to which the early Friends bore witness was not confined to that innermost sanctuary of whose very existence, perhaps, none but a few “mystics” are conscious; but that, while proceeding from those deepest depths, it was recognized as also lighting up conscience, and conduct, and all the tangible outer framework of life; and that it was called “within” not alone in the sense of lying nearer the centre of our being than anything else, but also in the (to ordinary minds) more intelligible sense of beginning at home—of being the reward of each man’s own faithfulness, of being independent of priests and ordinances. The religion they preached was one which enforced the individual responsibility of each one for his own soul; it was a portable and verifiable religion—a religion which required truth in word and deed, plain dealing and kindness and self-control, and which did not require ceremonial observances or priestly guarantees; a religion in which practice went for more than theory, and all were expected to take their stand on one level, and their share in the worship and the business of “the Church.” It is easy to see how such preaching as this would commend itself to English independence. It surely commends itself to the unchanging sense of truth in the human heart, and will be welcomed whenever it is preached from first-hand experience of its power.
“That which you seek without you have already within you.” The words which changed the life of Madame Guyon will never lose their power while human nature is occupied with the struggle for a state of stable equilibrium. The perennial justification of Quakerism lies in its energetic assertion that the kingdom of heaven is within us; that we are not made dependent upon any outward organization for our spiritual welfare. Its perennial difficulty lies in the inveterate disposition of human beings to look to each other for spiritual help, in the feebleness of their perception of that Divine Voice which speaks to each one in a language no other ear can hear, and in the apathy which is content to go through life without the attempt at any true individual communion with God.
“The kingdom of heaven is within us.” No Christian, surely, can dispute the truth of this deep word of Christ Himself. But its interpretation has a wide range. In his own lips it was used in opposition to the “Lo here! and lo there!” for which he was preparing His disciples. They were not to be hurried away into a search for Christ in all directions, but were to remember that His kingdom (surely implying His living presence) is in the hearts of His people. He Himself makes none of those abstruse distinctions between consciousness and being, accident and essence, subject and object, or even superficial and profound, and so forth, which it has been the delight of many of His most devoted followers to interweave with this simple expression “within you.”
I think it is inevitable that the more deeply we penetrate into the recesses of the human mind, the more we should have a sense of approaching an inner sanctuary, and that there is a very real and deep sense in which this word “within you” may be understood as meaning “above all in your inmost depths.” But this is not its original or its obvious meaning. In the teaching of our Lord there is a frequent reference to the distinction of inward or outward, but the distinction is drawn in a broad and simple manner. It is oftenest a demand upon our sincerity and thoroughness, not upon our powers of introspection—an appeal on behalf of the weightier matters of the Law as compared with trivial and ceremonial observances. It would scarcely, I think, be true to say that the doctrine of an “inner light,” as we understand it, is explicitly laid down in the Gospels, although, to my own mind, that doctrine appears to be an almost inevitable inference from their teaching. I am not, however, attempting to deal with the question on its merits. I only wish to draw attention to the wide range of meaning covered by such expressions as “the light within,” and “the inner light.”