American Transcendentalism and Quakerism—Likeness to God
October 17, 2024 § 4 Comments
I have been reading The American Transcendentalists: Essential Writings, edited by Lawrence Buell. It’s a collection of essays by the main figures in the American Transcendentalist movement, of whom the most famous are Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.
I keep coming across passages that so align with our Quaker thinking that I want to pass some of them along. I’m going to do them one by one in subsequent posts.
“Humanity’s Likeness to God,” by William Ellery Channing (Buell, p. 12)
“It is only in proportion to this likeness that we can enjoy either God, or the universe. That God can be known and enjoyed only through sympathy or kindred attributes, is a doctrine which even Gentile philosophy discerned. That the pure of heart can alone see and commune with the pure Divinity, was the sublime instruction of ancient sages [thinking of Plotinus, here, and the neo-Platonists, I suspect] as well as of inspired prophets. It is indeed the lesson of daily experience. To understand a great and good being, we must have the seeds of the same excellence. How quickly, by what an instinct, do accordant minds recognize one another! No attraction is so powerful as that which subsists between the truly wise, and good; whilst the brightest excellence is lost on those who have nothing congenial in their own breasts. God becomes a real being to us, in proportion as his own nature is unfolded within us. To a man who is growing in the likeness of God, faith begins even here to change into vision. He carries within himself a proof of a Deity, which can only be understood by experience. He more than believes, he feels the divine presence; and gradually rises to an intercourse with his Maker, to which it is not irreverent to apply the name of friendship and intimacy. The apostle John intended to express this truth, when he tells us that he, in whom a principle of divine charity or benevolence has become a habit and life, “dwells in God and God in him.”
“It is plain, too, that likeness to god is the true and only preparation for the enjoyment of the universe. . . . I think, however, that every reflecting man will feel, that the likeness to God must be a principle of sympathy or accordance with his creation; for the creation is a birth and shining forth of the Divine Mind, a work through which his spirit breathes. In proportion as we receive this spirit, we possess within ourselves the explanation of what we see. We discern more and more of God in everything, from the frail flower to the everlasting stars.”
Some thoughts
The first paragraph reminds me of Rufus Jones, who was influenced I believe by neo-Platonism himself, and talked of “that of God’ in similar terms. In his books on mysticism, Jones makes a similar case, that mystical experience is made possible by some aspect of the Divine that dwells in the human. It is through the affinity of this divine principle in the human with its divine source that enables and indeed conducts the mystic into the Divine Presence.
This second paragraph reminds me of Fox’s recounting of one of his first visions: “Now I was come up in spirit through the flaming sword into the paradise of God. All things were new, and all the creation gave another smell unto me than before, beyond what words can utter. . . . The creation was opened to me, and it was showed me how all things had their names given them according to their nature and virtue. . . . in which the admirable works of the creation, and the virtues thereof, may be known, through the openings of that divine Word of wisdom and power by which they were made.”
Through the Flaming Sword 
My memory is a bit hazy, but there was quite a bit of mutual irradiation between Transcendentalists and Quakers in the 1840s. For instance: Emerson boarded with a Quaker family while he was candidating for a Unitarian pastorate somewhere (New Bedford?), and was sufficiently influenced by them that he told the search committee that he wouldn’t be able to pray aloud unless led by the Spirit. He wasn’t called, and never held a pastorate again. Bronson Alcott (father of Louisa May) was pastor in Germantown and was impressed by Quaker schools that he tried to start a Unitarian school elsewhere along the same model, but without success. (see Little Men) Hymn texts by Samuel Longfellow (brother of Henry W. and Unitarian minister in Germantown) show a great deal of Quaker influence (see “Light of ages and of nations” in Worship in Song).
Esther, as always, you are a font of knowledge. Thanks!
Hi
Interesting blog post!
You might enjoy Frederick Tolles’s essay “Emerson and Quakerism”. Also Naoko Saito’s “The gleam of light”. Jones was tremendously influenced by Emerson — and by William James, who was himself influenced by Emerson (and knew him in his youth). Richardson’s life of Emerson discusses Quaker influences on Emerson, which were considerable — not only contemporary Friends — Emerson also made an intensive study of Fox’s Journal and Sewell’s History.
Thanks so much, Brian, for this comment and its references. Can you point to where I can learn more about Jones’s biography vis a vis Emerson? I’d like to read that.