Hid With Christ in God
Illustration★★★“Our life is hid with Christ in God.” It is the passionate and unceasing insistence on the Christ- nature within every man as such which gave dignity and power to the preaching of the early Quakers. Read George Fox’s journal, and this emerges out of an astonishing amount of fanaticism and unfairness. It runs like a thread of gold through the whole narrative.
On all hands religious men were disputing about the limits of Church membership, the rights of hierarchies, the importance of sacraments, the decrees of God in election and reprobation, and so forth; and there was immense excitement and vehemence and partisanship; Christianity seemed to have lost its moral force alto- gether; and the Image of Christ had faded from view. Then came this strange, youthful-looking man, with his long hair and brilliant eyes, and courage of a martyr blended with an extraordinary tenderness, and a fervent eloquence which held men spell-bound and called them away from the quarrelling Christians and their churches, and pointed them to Christ within themselves.
This is his habitual phrase. “I directed them to the light of Christ in them.” “I exhorted the family to turn to the Lord Jesus Christ and hearken to His teachings in their own hearts.” “I directed them to Christ, the true Teacher within” (Col. iii.
3).
CANON HENSLEY.
The point
The early Quakers' power came from pointing people to the indwelling Christ within, rather than disputes over church structure.