This was done both by Robert Barclay and
William Penn in works, which defended other principles of the Quakers,
and other peculiarities in their language.
One of the arguments, by which the use of the pronoun thou was defended,
was the same as that, on which it had been defended by Stubbs and
Furley, that is, its strict conformity with grammar. The translators of
the Bible had invariably used it. The liturgy had been compiled on the
same principle. All addresses made by English Christians in their
private prayers to the Supreme Being, were made in the language of thou,
and not of you. And this was done, because the rules of the English
grammar warranted the expression, and because any other mode of
expression would have been a violation of these rules.
But the great argument (to omit all others) which Penn and Barclay
insisted upon for the change of you, was that the pronoun thou, in
addressing an individual, had been anciently in use, but that it had
been deserted for you for no other purpose, than that of flattery to
men; and that this dereliction of it was growing greater and greater,
upon the same principle, in their own times. Hence as christians, who
were not to puff up the fleshly creature, it became them to return to
the ancient and grammatical use of the pronoun thou, and to reject this
growing fashion of the world.
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