American Transcendentalism and Quakerism—The Light Within
October 19, 2024 § 2 Comments
No passage I’ve read in this book so far (The American Transcendentalists: Essential Writings) comes closer to the heart of Quaker spirituality than this one from George Ripley in an 1840 essay titled “Letter of Intent to Resign.”
Here’s the opening paragraph of the editor Lawrence Buell’s introduction to the essay:
Ripley began his ministry at almost exactly the same time as Emerson, but he stayed much longer within the fold, being a more devoted pastor though less gifted as a public speaker. But Ripley, too, came to feel irksomely constrained. His sense of constraint was all the greater given the mainstream Unitarian reaction of the 1830s against the Transcendentalist challenges with which he himself deeply sympathized.
Here’s the Quaker-ish quote from Ripley’s letter:
There is a class of persons who desire a reform in the prevailing philosophy of the day. These are called Transcendentalists, because they believe in an order of truths which transcends the sphere of the external sense. Their leading idea is the supremacy of mind over matter. Hence they maintain that the truth of religion does not depend on tradition, nor historical facts, but has an unerring witness in the soul. There is a light, they believe, which enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world; there is a faculty in all—the most degraded, the most ignorant, the most obscure—to perceive spiritual truth, when distinctly presented; and the ultimate appeal on all moral questions is not to a jury of scholars, a hierarchy of divines, or the prescriptions of a creed, but to the common sense of the human race.
Ripley’s reference to the light comes, of course, from the prologue of John’s gospel, one of the foundational texts for Friends since the beginning.
His reliance on “common sense” is a common theme throughout the several essays I’ve read so far. I have a hunch that “common sense” meant something more or slightly different to these writers than it does to us today. Emerson makes a subtle distinction between what he calls Intellect and Reason, Reason being some higher faculty of understanding that has a spiritual aspect. From my limited reading so far, I sense that “common sense” is akin to this faculty Emerson defines, a universal and natural capacity to see things as they are, and all things, for the Transcendentalists, have a spiritual dimension.
Ripley does not expound further on his theology of the light, but goes on to describe how his own experience has confirmed this idea.
Through the Flaming Sword 
The “Quaker-ish Quote” from Ripley’s letter describes my “moral compass” – thanks so much for this Steve.
it’s a great quote.