Willoughby. His doctrine that the influence of the Spirit is perceptible, as well as immediate, is still more questionable, surely?
Gower. Perceptible! aye, and physically perceptible, he will have it, in some cases,—manifested in a tremulous agitation of the frame.
Willoughby. True. The convulsive movements among the Protestant peasantry of the Cevennes are a similar instance. This spasmodical religious excitement is in a high degree infectious when many are assembled together.
Atherton. Yet we should not reject the doctrine of perceptible spiritual guidance because it is so liable to abuse. My objection is that I have never seen satisfactory proof adduced. Do not let us think, however, that we escape from the danger of self-delusion by denying this doctrine, and can afford to be careless accordingly. You often see persons who would think the Quaker belief a dangerous superstition, unscrupulously identifying their personal or party interests with the cause of God, as though they believed themselves divinely commissioned, and could not possibly be liable to deception.
Willoughby. Here you see the value of the Quaker doctrine concerning stillness and quiet. The soul must be withdrawn in a silent waiting, and so hearken for the divine voice. The impulses which stir in the unallayed tumult of the feelings are the promptings of passion or of self, not of God. Wherever the belief in perceptible guidance is entertained, this practice of tranquil tarrying should accompany it, as its proper safeguard.
Atherton. The Quakers are wrong, I think, in separating particular movements and monitions as divine. But, at the same time, the ‘witness of the Spirit,’ as regards our state before God, is something more, I believe, than the mere attestation to the written word.
Willoughby. The traditional asceticism of the Friends is their fatal defect as a body.
Atherton. And their proneness to hazard good principles by pushing them to some repulsive extreme. Thus, they propose to abolish physical force by yielding everything to it;—to put an end to war by laying Europe at the feet of a great military power,—by apologizing for the oppressor and reviling those who resist him.
Gower. I believe the man who says to me, I am trying to love my neighbour as myself: I suspect him who professes to love him better. His profession is worse than worthless unless he be consistent, and will allow himself to be swindled with impunity.
Atherton. We may well be suspicious when we see this super-Christian morality defended by arguments which can only be valid with the meanest and most grovelling selfishness. Such ethics are, in promise, more than human; in performance—less.