29 Facts About Elias Hicks

Elias Hicks was a traveling Quaker minister from Long Island, New York.

Elias Hicks was the older cousin of the painter Edward Hicks.

Elias Hicks was born in Hempstead, New York, in 1748, the son of John Hicks and Martha Hicks, who were farmers.

Elias Hicks was a carpenter by trade and in his early twenties he became a Quaker like his father.

In 1778, Elias Hicks helped to build the Friends meeting house in Jericho, which remains a place of Quaker worship.

Elias Hicks preached actively in Quaker meeting, and by 1778 he was acknowledged as a recorded minister.

Elias Hicks was regarded as a gifted speaker with a strong voice and dramatic flair.

Elias Hicks drew large crowds when he was said to be attending meetings, sometimes in the thousands.

In 1794, Elias Hicks was a founder of the Charity Society of Jericho and Westbury Meetings, established to give aid to local poor African Americans and provide their children with education.

In 1811, Elias Hicks wrote Observations on the Slavery of Africans and Their Descendants and in it he linked the moral issue of emancipation to the Quaker Peace Testimony, by stating that slavery was the product of war.

Elias Hicks identified economic reasons for the perpetuation of slavery:.

Elias Hicks supported Lundy's scheme to assist the emigration of freed slaves to Haiti and in 1824, he hosted a meeting on how to facilitate this at his home in Jericho.

Elias Hicks influenced the abolition of slavery in his home state, from the partial abolition of the 1799 Gradual Abolition Act to the 1817 Gradual Manumission in New York State Act which led to the final emancipation of all remaining slaves within the state on July 4,1827.

Elias Hicks sparked great controversy for writing in letters to his friends that the scriptures created more harm than good, because different factions of Christians held the Bible in too high a regard and without using the inward light as the primary source of understanding with which to interpret the Bible.

Elias Hicks argued that Jesus was the savior of the Jewish people by replacing the law put forth by Moses.

Elias Hicks argued that Jesus provided the path to salvation for all people exemplified by his life, which was perfectly and entirely guided and united with the Holy Spirit through his inward light.

Consequently Elias Hicks implicitly refutes doctrines of salvation such as penal substitution, or predestination.

Elias Hicks never spoke of eternal Hell but he expressed the importance of the soul's union "now" in preparation for the "realms of eternity" and how the soul's condemnation is elected through our free agency, not by God's foreordination.

Elias Hicks rejected of the notion of an outward Devil as the source of evil, but rather emphasized that it was the human 'passions' or 'propensities'.

Elias Hicks claimed, in his sermon Let Brotherly Love Continue at the Byberry Friends Meeting in 1824 that:.

However, doctrinal tensions among Friends due to Elias Hicks' teachings had emerged as early as 1808 and as Elias Hicks' influence grew, prominent visiting English evangelical public Friends, including William Forster and Anna Braithwaite, were prompted to travel to New York State in the period from 1821 to 1827 to denounce his views.

Elias Hicks visited the United States between 1823 and 1827 and published her Letters and observations relating to the controversy respecting the doctrines of Elias Hicks in 1824 in which she depicted Hicks as a radical eccentric.

Elias Hicks felt obliged to respond and in the same year published a letter to his ally in Philadelphia Meeting, Dr Edwin Atlee, in The Misrepresentations of Anna Braithwaite.

In 1819, Elias Hicks had devoted much energy into influencing the meeting houses in Philadelphia and this was followed by years of intense organizational turmoil.

Elias Hicks was not present when the differences between the meeting houses ended in acrimony and division, precipitated by the inability of the Meeting to reach consensus on the appointment of a new clerk required to record its discernment.

On June 24,1829, at the age of 81, Elias Hicks went on his final traveling ministry to western and central New York State, arriving home in Jericho on November 11,1829.

Elias Hicks died some two weeks later on February 27,1830, his dying concern being that no cotton blanket, a product of slavery, should cover him on his deathbed.

Elias Hicks was interred in the Jericho Friends' Burial Ground as was earlier his wife, Jemima, who predeceased him on March 17,1829.

Samuel E Clements a editor of the newspaper the Patriot aroused controversy when he and two friends attempted to dig up the corpse Elias Hicks to create a plaster mold of his head.