[39] Journal, p. 69.
In the acknowledgment of the Divine influence and favor, Elias Hicks had a collection of phrases which he repeatedly used. "It was the Lord's doings, and marvelous in our eyes," was a common expression. He repeatedly said: "Our sufficiency was not of ourselves, but of God; and that the Lord was our strength from day to day, who is over all blessed forever." One of his favorite expressions was: "To the Lord be all the praise, nothing due to man."
Trite and pointed Scripture quotations were always at command, and they were effectively employed, both in speaking and writing. It will be noted by the reader that not a few of the expressions used by Elias Hicks sound like the phrases coined by George Fox.
That Elias Hicks believed in the plenary inspiration of the preacher is well attested. His testimony was constantly against the "letter," with little recognition that the letter could ever contain the spirit. Here is a sample exhortation to ministers:
"And it is a great thing when ministers keep in remembrance that necessary caution of the divine Master, not to premediate what they shall say; but carefully to wait in the nothingness and emptiness of self, that what they speak may be only what the Holy Spirit speaketh in them; then will they not only speak the truth, but the truth, accompanied with power, and thereby profit the hearers."[40]
[40] Journal, p. 296.
He admonished Friends in meeting, and especially ministers, to "get inward, and wait in their proper gifts." The evident theory was that by waiting, and possibly wrestling with the manifestation it was possible to tell whether it was from below or above.
Still, there was not an entire absence of the human and even the rational in Elias Hicks' theory of the ministry as it worked out in practice. He had evidently discovered the psychological side of public speaking to the extent of recognizing that even the preacher was influenced by his audience.
When he was in Philadelphia in 1816, before the troubled times had arrived, he tells us that "it proved a hard trying season: one of them [ministers] was exercised in public testimony, and although she appeared to labor fervently, yet but little life was felt to arise during the meeting. This makes the work hard for the poor exercised ministers, who feel the necessity publicly to advocate the cause of truth and righteousness, and yet obtain but little relief, by reason of the deadness and indifference of those to whom they are constrained to minister. I found it my place to sit silent and suffer with the seed."[41]
[41] Journal, p. 271.