"In reading the scriptures of truth, we often put wrong constructions upon them, and apply them improperly; and I apprehend it has often been the case in relation to this portion, particularly that part in relation to man's seeking out many inventions"
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Hicks is doing something quietly radical: he’s warning his own flock that the danger isn’t “the world” so much as the reader. The line has the plainspoken cadence of a minister, but the intent is surgical. By admitting that “we often put wrong constructions” on “the scriptures of truth,” he shifts authority away from inherited interpretation and back onto conscience, discipline, and intellectual humility. Scripture remains “truth,” yet our handling of it is fallible, even self-serving. That tension is the point.
The phrase he zeroes in on, “man’s seeking out many inventions” (from Ecclesiastes), had long been used as a ready-made cudgel: a verse to scold novelty, curiosity, science, commerce, even social change. Hicks “apprehends” it’s been misapplied, a careful Quaker verbal brake that masks a sharper accusation: people weaponize sacred text to sanctify their anxieties. The subtext is less “don’t invent” than “don’t moralize your preferences as divine command.”
Context matters. As an 18th- and early 19th-century Quaker minister, Hicks preached the primacy of the Inner Light over rigid creeds, a stance that would help fuel the Hicksite-Orthodox split. Read that way, this is also an institutional critique. He’s not only correcting an exegetical mistake; he’s challenging the social machinery that turns interpretation into control. “Seeking out many inventions” becomes a mirror: are you condemning human restlessness, or exposing your own need for certainty? Hicks bets the latter is the more common sin.
The phrase he zeroes in on, “man’s seeking out many inventions” (from Ecclesiastes), had long been used as a ready-made cudgel: a verse to scold novelty, curiosity, science, commerce, even social change. Hicks “apprehends” it’s been misapplied, a careful Quaker verbal brake that masks a sharper accusation: people weaponize sacred text to sanctify their anxieties. The subtext is less “don’t invent” than “don’t moralize your preferences as divine command.”
Context matters. As an 18th- and early 19th-century Quaker minister, Hicks preached the primacy of the Inner Light over rigid creeds, a stance that would help fuel the Hicksite-Orthodox split. Read that way, this is also an institutional critique. He’s not only correcting an exegetical mistake; he’s challenging the social machinery that turns interpretation into control. “Seeking out many inventions” becomes a mirror: are you condemning human restlessness, or exposing your own need for certainty? Hicks bets the latter is the more common sin.
Quote Details
| Topic | Bible |
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