Counsel to the Christian-Traveller: Also Meditations & Experiences (review)

To read Counsel to the Christian-Traveller is to travel to a very different time with very different expectations and sensibilities. The goal of the book is a familiar one—as the subtitle states, to reveal "the Right Way to God" so that all "may be Encouraged to Walk therein," but the route markers will be alien to a twenty-first-century reader.

Be prepared for unfamiliar words and, stranger still, those that seem familiar, but carried very different meanings in the seventeenth century. Even the title should serve as a warning that it was written more than three hundred years ago in a very different world. A contemporary reader might easily mistake a "Christian-Traveller" as someone who travels in the ministry. Nothing could be more mistaken—the "traveller" in the title refers to one who travails, that is, one who engages in hard labor until thoroughly wearied—and these labors are inward, not outward. In short, Shewen hopes he is addressing everyone, but fears that many have been misguided into believing they are Christians and true travelers on the paths of righteousness when they are not. Likewise, be aware of the many scriptural quotations, allusions, intimations, and hints—often layered and interwoven—scattered throughout the text. William Shewen confidently assumed that his readers would not only recognize these references, but they would automatically call to mind the context in which they appear. A snippet from the description of his intended reader in the first paragraph illustrates this: "Thou to whom Sin hath been a grievous Burthen with which thou hast been weary and heavy laden: Thou to whom Sin is made exceedingly sinful." These two short phrases allude to Luke 11:46, Matthew 11:28, Romans 7:13, and more. This is not to say that Shewen sat with his Bible while he wrote, looking for individual verses to bolster each argument. Scripture was as much popular culture in his day as movies, advertisements, and pop songs are in ours. Just as we can refer to Harry Potter or the Beatles and expect others to know who each is and what they signify, Shewen expected his readers would effortlessly link what they read to the stories, lessons, and guidance of the Bible.

His use of scripture requires a further adjustment on our part. In our day, we are familiar with the practices of selecting individual verses to support an argument and often dissecting each verse, picking it apart and examining each individual word in the original language to build up an understanding of its meaning. I don't know if Shewen knew Greek or Hebrew, but his understanding of the Bible was not constructed from atomized pieces. The Bible was a single work to be grasped as a whole—every book, every chapter, and every verse provide context and perspective for reading every other verse, chapter, and book. These cannot be separated out—meaning is a property of the whole.

In short, when you read this book, slow down. There is a depth and a beauty in this work that won't be discovered in a quick read. Counsel to the Christian Traveller is a book that rewards smaller bites and thorough chewing. It's an excellent companion to a period of meditation. The patient reader will be rewarded with a coherent, scripturally-based statement of faith and practice among Friends in the seventeenth century—one that can enlighten, challenge, and speak to the condition of a reader in the twenty-first century.

I highly recommend it.

Full Disclosure: The Journal of Elias Hicks, edited by Paul Buckley, will be published this fall by Inner Light Books.