A visit to the Spirit in prison

Stuart Masters continues his series on early Quaker tracts and pamphlets. This week he considers a tract by Sarah Blackborow: A Visit to the Spirit in Prison

Sarah Blackborow, who died in 1665, was a prominent Quaker minister in London during the 1650s and 1660s. She helped to establish a Meeting at Hammersmith and was probably influential in the development of separate women’s Business Meetings. She wrote and published the tract A Visit to the Spirit in Prison in 1658. It is a good example of the kind of early Quaker writing that combined strong words of warning and admonishment with positive and joyful messages of spiritual guidance and encouragement. She also uses a feminine image of God. A simple summary of Blackborow’s message follows:

Turn to God’s Spirit within you – all people can find God’s true and faithful witness within them if they are prepared to see and hear. You should turn to the Light and give up your wicked ways. Those who are in the Light have a duty to condemn all false practices. The clergy preach for money and persecute righteous people because they are following their own spirit rather than the Spirit of God. This is the way of the world, not the way of God. Quakers are a poor, despised and persecuted people who have been sent by God to take people away from all false practices and bring them to the Truth.

Salvation is available to everyone – the eternal love of God is in all people, and everyone is offered the opportunity to receive this gift and be brought into communion with God. I know this is possible because it has happened to me. It was not always an easy path because, at first, the Spirit revealed all my sins and darkness. I was lost and confused. However, I was given the power to overcome sin, and the mysteries of God’s everlasting kingdom were revealed to me. When I first met Quakers they turned me to the Spirit of God within me and I ministered to them in return. It is the Spirit of Jesus within each of us that can turn us away from outward things and toward the seed of God deep within us. So, I encourage everyone to turn to the Light of Christ Jesus within you. He is the Prince of peace. His love is eternal and beyond limits.

Salvation brings great love and joy – having experienced God’s Spirit cleansing me of all evil and darkness and having received God’s everlasting love, I now feel a great love for all people and want everyone to benefit from this too. In love, I implore you to worship the living God and attend to God’s Spirit within you. Why do you talk about your fear of God but refuse to submit to his transforming power? Words are not enough; real transformation in the power of God’s Spirit is what is required. Your continued disobedience causes me great pain. What can I do to help you see the Light? Christ is near you in Spirit; do not ignore him. Allow Christ to rule within you and humble yourselves before his mighty power. The spirit of this world is a poor and temporary thing compared to God’s eternal presence and power.

Choose the way of God not the ways of the world – there are two ways: the way of eternal, unchangeable truth and the way of outward, corruptible things. You have to choose. If you love the one way, you will hate the other. Will you choose the way of resurrection and life or the way of darkness and death? Don’t be distracted and misled. Turn away from the many and varied ways of the world and face up to God’s witness within you. Pay attention to it and live with it. Follow divine leadings and know God’s power. This is the only way to eternal life. If you are faithful, you may well experience suffering, but you will also be given the strength to endure this and be delivered from all trouble. But you must stick with it. The love of God will be with you and will comfort you. It will lead you out of the changeable ways of the world and to the eternal life. This Spirit will crucify your darkness, enabling you to break free from the things that prevent you from entering the Kingdom of God.

Sit at the feet of your Inward Teacher – if you rely on the second-hand words and ideas of other people, you are missing the real thing, which comes directly from the living God. Turn away from the teaching of others; stop worrying about your reputation and turn instead to the Light within you, which will show you the truth. If you are willing to submit to your inward teacher and accept what is revealed and what is taught, you will hear God’s voice calling you to the heavenly dwelling place. Turn to the Light of Christ, which reveals all evil and darkness. Give yourself fully to this Light, whether it praises you or condemns you. For this is your true Mother, who has conceived you and who loves you. This is what love really means, but too many people are preoccupied with their own wisdom and their earthly riches, so leave no room for God. Christ is trying to make a dwelling place within you but he is left rejected and homeless.

Be thankful for God’s love and grace – people have drifted far away from God. This makes them spiritually dead and miserable. They have lost the guidance of God and so stray further and further away from the eternal being, and into captivity to earthly and temporary things. But, because of his great love for the world, God sent his Son to liberate people from this bondage. Now everyone has a measure of the Spirit of Christ within them which acts as a witness to God in the human conscience. If you pay attention to the measure of Light you been given, you will come to understand how things really are. You will become sensitive to the work of the Light in your consciences, which reproves you when you do wrong. If you pay attention to God’s leadings and are obedient to them, you will gain the power of God to overcome sin. You will become aware of your feelings and impulses as they arise and understand what motivates you. You will receive the faith of Jesus, be given the ability to discern right and wrong and become what God really intended humans to be. We should all give thanks and praise to God for offering us such an invaluable gift.

Sarah Blackborow’s tract is a classic description of Quaker spirituality. She makes clear that access to the Kingdom of God is available to all because everyone has the Holy Spirit within them. This Spirit has the power to destroy evil and raise up a new life in harmony with God, with other humans and with the rest of creation. She describes a convincement process that was common among early Friends.

First, the Light reveals the darkness within, causing a spiritual crisis. However, if the person sticks with their discipline and practice, a sense of great joy, love and liberation is experienced. This is only possible when the individual turns away from the temporary and changeable things of the physical world and focuses instead on God as an eternal and unchanging Spirit. If we wish to enter the Kingdom of God, we must all sit at the feet of our inward teaching and follow the divine guidance we receive.

Stuart is senior programme leader at the Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre in Birmingham.

The original tract can be found in the Earlham School of Religion’s Digital Quaker Collection: http://bit.ly/1K5S8QM

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