Elias Hicks Biography Quotes 20 Report mistakes

Early life and formation
Elias Hicks was born in 1748 on Long Island, New York, within the orbit of the Society of Friends. Reared among Quakers at a time when their discipline emphasized plain living, truthfulness, and refusal of violence, he learned a trade as a carpenter and later tended a modest farm. The rural meetings of Long Island, particularly around Jericho, shaped his habits of worship and speech, and he absorbed from older Friends the conviction that true religion springs from an inward work of grace rather than from outward ceremony. In 1771 he married Jemima Seaman, a fellow Friend from a respected Long Island family, and the couple settled near Jericho Meeting, which remained his spiritual home for the rest of his life.

Call to ministry and travels
Hicks was recognized as a minister among Friends while still a young man. In keeping with Quaker practice, this meant no ordination or fixed salary, but a public acknowledgment that he spoke with power and consistency in meetings for worship. He travelled widely under a concern for the ministry, visiting meetings throughout the Mid-Atlantic, New England, and parts of the South. The journeys were arduous by the standards of the time, but his simple manner of address, homely illustrations, and moral earnestness drew large audiences, both Quaker and non-Quaker. He urged hearers to attend to the Inner Light, the immediate revelation of God in the soul, and he repeatedly warned against reliance on human authority or on forms that could not change the heart.

Convictions and message
Hicks insisted that the primary rule of faith is the inward witness of the Spirit, which judges and interprets all outward authorities, including scripture. This was a recovery, in his view, of the early Quaker testimony rather than a novelty. He read the Bible reverently yet refused to let its words substitute for what he believed was the living voice of Christ within. His preference for experiential religion led him to speak often against priestcraft, paid ministry, and creedal tests, and to press the duties of humility, honesty in trade, plain dress, and compassion for the oppressed. He was not a theologian in the academic sense; rather, he was a practical moralist who believed that obedience to present light would lead into further truth.

Antislavery witness and economic ethics
The wrong of slavery weighed heavily on Hicks. Building on the earlier example of Friends like John Woolman, he pleaded with slaveholding Quakers to manumit those they held in bondage and to repair, as far as possible, the harm done. He wrote and circulated his Observations on the Slavery of the Africans and Their Descendants, arguing that Christian consistency required not only the freeing of enslaved people but also a refusal to profit from their forced labor. From this flowed his advocacy of the free produce principle: that consumers should avoid sugar, cotton, and other goods made by slaves. This testimony influenced younger reformers, among them Lucretia Mott and her husband James Mott, who later became leaders in free produce associations and broader antislavery work. The practical abolitionist Isaac T. Hopper also found in Hicks a moral ally as he labored for the protection of freedom seekers and the reform of unjust laws.

Rising controversy
As the early nineteenth century unfolded, a more evangelical current entered parts of the Society of Friends, stressing fixed doctrines and the priority of scripture. Hicks believed this shift endangered the foundation of Quaker spirituality. The resulting tension sharpened into controversy after several visiting ministers from Britain and prominent American Friends criticized his preaching. Anna Braithwaite, a British Friend of strong evangelical views, met with Hicks, published searching critiques of his doctrine, and warned that he undermined belief in the unique place of Jesus of Nazareth. In Philadelphia, Orthodox-leaning editors and ministers such as Thomas Evans and William Evans took up the same charge in print and committee rooms. Other well-known Orthodox Friends, including the itinerant minister Stephen Grellet, voiced alarm that Hicks exalted the Inner Light at the expense of scripture and historic Christian belief.

The separation of Friends
What began as an internal debate grew into a rupture of governance. Disputes over the appointment of elders and clerks, control of meetinghouses, and the right to define acceptable doctrine culminated in separations across several Yearly Meetings. The Philadelphia separation of 1827 became the signal event, followed by separations in New York and elsewhere. Those who favored Hicks's emphasis on inward guidance and congregational equality were soon called Hicksites (the name was first used by opponents but adopted conventionally), while those who insisted on creedal clarity and evangelical discipline were known as Orthodox Friends. Leaders such as John Comly, an experienced Quaker minister and writer in Pennsylvania, worked to organize Hicksite meetings in a peaceable spirit; he corresponded with Hicks and shared his concern that Friends not surrender their primitive testimony. Among Hicks's own relatives and associates, the painter Edward Hicks became a conspicuous supporter, interpreting the hope for peace and integrity in his celebrated Peaceable Kingdom canvases.

Public exchanges and printed legacy
The conflict generated a stream of pamphlets and letters on both sides. Hicks answered critics in plain, unadorned prose, insisting he denied nothing of the inward reality that the earliest Christians knew, while refusing to let theological systems reign over conscience. Though he was not the architect of a party, his published letters, journals, and sermons circulated widely and helped give voice to Friends who felt disoriented by rising evangelicalism. Orthodox editors, including the Evans brothers in Philadelphia, responded with compilations that sought to demonstrate doctrinal error, while Hicksite Friends preserved his talks as examples of vintage Quaker exhortation. In these exchanges, he never abandoned a conciliatory tone, though he could be sharp when he believed that power had eclipsed charity.

Daily life and character
Despite notoriety, Hicks kept to plain habits. He farmed, mended, and travelled with frugality; he endorsed simplicity in dress, often favoring undyed fabrics, and urged Friends to measure prosperity by obedience rather than wealth. He distrusted litigation and political partisanship, preferring persuasion of conscience to coercion. Visitors described him as tall and spare, with a direct gaze and a gift for striking moral images drawn from fields, workshops, and the sea that surrounded Long Island. Those who agreed with him found his speech liberating; those who did not still acknowledged his sincerity and blameless life.

Final years and death
After the separations, Hicks continued to speak among meetings that had aligned with the Hicksite position. He remained anchored to Jericho, traveling when strength allowed, and offering counsel to younger Friends facing the practical work of rebuilding meetings and schools. The strains of travel and controversy, added to age, gradually reduced his vigor. He died in 1830, and Friends buried him in the quiet graveyard near the meetinghouse that had nurtured his faith from youth to old age. His passing was marked by memorials from both sides of the divide, some critical of his doctrine but few doubting his integrity.

Legacy
Hicks left no institution that bore his name, yet his ideas profoundly shaped American Quakerism. Hicksite meetings carried forward his stress on the Inner Light, liberty of conscience, and corporate equality; they helped nourish reformers such as Lucretia Mott, whose commitments to abolition and women's rights drew strength from the spiritual democracy he proclaimed. The Orthodox branch, while rejecting his teachings, was also defined in part by the arguments it sharpened against him. In the longer view, the divisions he symbolized reflected competing answers to a common question: how a historic peace church could remain faithful in a new republic marked by revivalism, expansion, and the moral crisis of slavery. Elias Hicks's biography thus intersects with the story of American religion itself, showing how a farmer-minister on Long Island could become a touchstone for conscience, controversy, and change across a continent.

Our collection contains 20 quotes who is written by Elias, under the main topics: Ethics & Morality - Free Will & Fate - Faith - Knowledge - Bible.