FRIEND, or quaker. A society of dis senters from the church of England ob tained the latter appellation in the middle of the seventeenth century ; the former they bad before applied, and continue to apply, to themselves. The first preacher of this society was George Fox, a man of humble birth, and illiterate. The un dertaking to which he considered him self called, that of promulgating a more simple and spiritual form of Christianity than any of those which prevailed, and of directing the attention of Christians to immediate revelation, required little more reading than that of the Bible. A con reference to the scriptures, with great zeal, courage, and perseverance, in preaching and suffering, did more than literature could have done to spread his doctrine among the middle and lower classes. The most prominent feature in the Friends' view of Christianity, is this seeing no man knoweth the Father, but the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him ; and seeing the revela tion of the Son is in and by the Spirit ; therefore the testimony of the Spirit is that alone by which the true knowledge of God is revealed. In this doctrine they agree, in substance, with the church of England, and all others who acknowledge the efficacy of grace. For in whatever way this is afforded to Christians, it is powerfully given to know and to do the will of God ; and the communication of grace may be termed, in strict consisten. cy with the sense of the NewTestament, a revelation of Christ in the Spirit. The Friends receive the Holy Scriptures as having proceeded from the revelations of the Holy Spirit ; they account them the secondary rule for Christians, subordinate to the word, and therefore not the word of God. According to these they pro fess their belief in one God, as Father, Word, and Holy Spirit ; in one Mediator, the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ ; in the conception, birth. life, miracles, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus ; and in the remission of sins there by purchased for the whole world of fall en mankind. Christ's redemption they believe to he perfected in us by his se cond coming in spirit ; in which they who obey him are, through the obedience of faith, restored from their state of aliena tion, and reconciled to God. They affirm, that for this end there, is given to every man a measure of the light of Christ, (called, by their early preachers, the light within) a manifestation of the Spirit to profit withal ; which discovers sin, re proves for it, leads out of it, and, if not resisted, will save from it, and lead on the Christian to perfection. In public wor
ship, they profess to wait on God in this gift, in order to have their conditions made manifest, in silence and retirement of mind. They look for an extraordinary motion of it for social worship, and con sidering the qualification of a minister as a further gift which God confers, and of which the church ought to judge in the same spirit, they do not limit its exercise to any description of persons. They suf fer some inconvenience hereby, as they acknowledge. ; but they prefer bearing this to the establishing of any form of worship, save the fore-mentioned waiting in silence. They do not baptize formal ly, or use the sign of the communion ; they say, the one has ceased as to obliga tion, and that the true administration of the other is by the spirit alone. They deem it unlawful for Christians to swear at all; and their affirmation in civil causes is made legal instead of an oath. They refuse to "learn war, or to lift up the sword," as well as to contribute directly to military proceedings. Yet, as they in culcate implicit submission, actively or passively, to C Tsar, they neither resist nor evade the legal appropriation of their substance by him, as well to these as to ecclesiastical purposes. Against the claims of the clergy, as well as many other things apparently lawful, they say, in their phra seology, they have a testimony to bear. Some peculiarities mark them out frotn their fellow-citizens. Simplicity in dress, in some instances nearly amounting to an adherence to their original, though not prescribed, costume ; simplicity of lan guage, thou to one person, and without compliments ; simplicity in their manners of living ; the non-observance of fasts and feasts; the rejection of those which they call the unchristian names of days and months ; and the renunciation of the thea tres and other promiscuous amusements, gaming, and the usual outward signs of mourning and rejoicing, may be consi dered as their shibboleth. They marry among themselves by a ceremony, or contract, religiously conducted, and bury their dead in the most simple manner. They maintain their poor, and enforce their own rules, by means of an excellent system of discipline, founded by G. Fox. They receive approved applicants into their society by an act of monthly meet ing, or particular congregation, and with out subscription of articles. They dis own, in the same manner, after repeated admonition, not officially only, but actual ly extended, to offenders against morality, or their peculiar rules.