John Wilbur (Quaker minister)
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John Wilbur (July 17, 1774 – May 1, 1856) was a prominent
American Quaker Quakers (or Friends) are members of a Christian religious movement that started in England as a form of Protestantism in the 17th century, and has spread throughout North America, Central America, Africa, and Australia. Some Quakers originally c ...
minister and religious thinker who was at the forefront of a controversy that led to "the second split" in the
Religious Society of Friends Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belief in each human's abili ...
in the United States. Wilbur was born to Quaker parents in
Hopkinton, Rhode Island Hopkinton is a town in Washington County, Rhode Island. The population was 8,398 at the 2020 census. History Hopkinton is named after Stephen Hopkins, a signer of the Declaration of Independence who was governor of the Colony of Rhode Island a ...
. Wilbur was recognized as an Elder in 1802 and acknowledged as a minister in 1812. Always intellectually inclined, Wilbur was the teacher of the local Friends school for many years. In 1822, Wilbur was appointed to an important committee of New England Friends to investigate the "new light" movement in
Lynn, Massachusetts Lynn is the eighth-largest municipality in Massachusetts and the largest city in Essex County. Situated on the Atlantic Ocean, north of the Boston city line at Suffolk Downs, Lynn is part of Greater Boston's urban inner core. Settled by E ...
. He made a handful of travels in the ministry, for which he became known as an exponent of traditional Quakerism. In 1831, Wilbur went on his first trip to England and encountered a growing Evangelical thrust among the Friends there, which made him uneasy. Friends had already come through a schism a few years earlier involving
Elias Hicks Elias Hicks (March 19, 1748 – February 27, 1830) was a traveling Quaker minister from Long Island, New York. In his ministry he promoted unorthodox doctrines that led to controversy, which caused the second major schism within the Religious Soc ...
. During this British trip, Wilbur wrote a series of letters to George Crossfield; these letters were well-received statements of Quaker doctrine and have been in print continuously since that time. The main body of Friends were called Orthodox because they had remained orthodox in terms of Christianity. But now Wilbur believed that some Orthodox Friends, especially those in England, were so alarmed about Hicks's perceived heterodoxy that they had gone too far in the other direction. He saw that this group of Friends was abandoning the traditional Friends practice of following God's immediate, inward guidance in favor of using their own reason to interpret and follow the Bible. They were stressing a cold intellectual acceptance of the Bible instead of a vital, direct experience of the Holy Spirit in one's heart. Wilbur quoted early Friends, such as
Robert Barclay Robert Barclay (23 December 16483 October 1690) was a Scottish Quaker, one of the most eminent writers belonging to the Religious Society of Friends and a member of the Clan Barclay. He was a son of Col. David Barclay, Laird of Urie, and his ...
,
William Penn William Penn ( – ) was an English writer and religious thinker belonging to the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania, a North American colony of England. He was an early advocate of democracy a ...
, and
George Fox George Fox (July 1624 – 13 January 1691) was an English Dissenter, who was a founder of the Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as the Quakers or Friends. The son of a Leicestershire weaver, he lived in times of social upheaval and ...
to make his case that the traditional view of Friends was that the inward light takes priority over the text of the Bible. At the same time, he agreed that the Bible was inspired by God and was useful as a guide, as had the early Friends. Wilbur returned to the United States in 1833. He became embroiled in a dispute with
Joseph John Gurney Joseph John Gurney (2 August 1788 – 4 January 1847) was a banker in Norwich, England and a member of the Gurney family of that city. He became an evangelical minister of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), whose views and actions led, ...
, a Quaker minister from England who was speaking throughout the United States. Gurney had been heavily involved in the drafting of the
London Yearly Meeting The Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Britain, also known as the Britain Yearly Meeting (and, until 1995, the London Yearly Meeting), is a Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in England, Sc ...
's
epistle An epistle (; el, ἐπιστολή, ''epistolē,'' "letter") is a writing directed or sent to a person or group of people, usually an elegant and formal didactic letter. The epistle genre of letter-writing was common in ancient Egypt as par ...
in 1836. In that epistle Friends in England officially voiced their adoption of the more Evangelical views that Wilbur had encountered and disapproved. During Gurney's sojourn in the United States, Wilbur made private comments against Gurney's views to some of his associates in
New England Yearly Meeting New England Yearly Meeting (officially the New England Yearly Meeting of Friends) is a body of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) founded in 1661
(which encompassed Friends in the eastern 80% of New England) and acquaintances in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. In 1838 some members of New England Yearly Meeting accused Wilbur of making derogatory statements against Gurney in violation of the principle of handling conflicts by going through the proper channels. They ordered South Kingston Monthly Meeting (local body he belonged to) to discipline him, but the local Friends supported Wilbur. Then the Rhode Island Quarterly Meeting (an intermediary group) laid down (dissolved) the South Kingston Monthly Meeting and attached its members to the Greenwich Monthly Meeting. The latter meeting disowned Wilbur in 1843. This disownment was confirmed by his quarterly meeting and then by the yearly meeting as well. Wilbur continued in the Friends movement with the support of many like-minded members. In 1845, a division took place in New England over the unusual treatment of Wilbur and his supporters. The smaller body, comprising about five hundred members, came to be called the "Wilburites" for their support of John Wilbur. The larger body came to be called the "Gurneyites" for their support of Joseph J. Gurney. In succeeding years, other yearly meetings divided: New York in 1846 and Ohio, Indiana, and Baltimore in 1854. The Wilburite Friends later entered into fellowship with a branch called the
Conservative Friends Conservative Friends are members of a certain branch of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). In the United States of America, Conservative Friends belong to three Yearly Meetings, Ohio, North Carolina, and Iowa. English Friends affiliated wi ...
. Wilbur made a second journey to England in 1853–1854. He died in 1856, the same year that two other leading Wilburite Quakers died (Thomas B. Gould and
Job Otis Job and Deborah Otis House, also known as East Otis Farm, is a historic home located at Sherwood in Cayuga County, New York. It is a Federal-style dwelling built in 1796. It consists of a 2-story, three-bay, side-hall main block with a -story s ...
).


Sources

*Wilbur, John. ''Journal of the Life of John Wilbur, a Minister of the Gospel in the Society of Friends; with Selections from his Correspondence''. Providence RI: George H. Whitney, 1859. *Wilbur, John. ''Letters to a Friend, On Some of the Primitive Doctrines of Christianity''. Philadelphia: The Tract Association of Friends, 1995. *Wilbur, John. ''A Narrative and Exposition of the Late Proceedings of New England Yearly Meeting, with some of its Subordinate Meetings, & their Committees, in Relation to the Doctrinal Controversy now existing in the Society of Friends''. New York City: Piercy & Reed, Printers, 1845. *


External links


Quaker Pages with links to some writings by John Wilbur
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wilbur, John American Quakers 1774 births 1856 deaths Quaker ministers Quaker theologians