"Quaker Faith and Practice" is a living (regularly revised) anthology which reflects the key ideas and concerns of Friends: some extracts from it are included below. It is the book of Christian discipline of the Religious Society of Friends in Britain and available in Meeting Houses or bookshops (ISBN 0-85245-307-8) throughout the country.
Click above for the list of contents, click on chapter headings
"Quaker Faith and Practice" is a living (regularly revised) anthology which reflects the key ideas and concerns of Friends: some extracts from it are included below. It is the book of Christian discipline of the Religious Society of Friends in Britain and available in Meeting Houses or bookshops (ISBN 0-85245-307-8) throughout the country.
Selected excerpts from Quaker Faith and Practice
A GUIDED PEOPLEThe experience of being gathered by God leads into the experience of being guided by God...
19.21 - Robert Barclay, (seventeenth century):
"...when I came into the silent assemblies of God's people, I felt a secret
power among them, which touched my heart; and as I gave way unto it I found the
evil weakening in me and the good raised up; and so I became thus knit and
united unto them, hungering more and more after the increase of this power and
life whereby I might feel myself perfectly redeemed..."
19.22 - George Fox (seventeenth century)
"We need no mass for to teach us, and we need not your common prayer, for
the Spirit that gave forth the scriptures teacheth us how to pray, sing, fast,
and to give thanks. The true faith changeth not, which is the gift of God, and a
mystery held in a pure conscience. Our faith, our church, our unity in the
Spirit, and our Word, at which we tremble, was in the beginning before your
church-made faiths, and our unity, church and fellowship will stand when they
are all ended."
MEETING FOR WORSHIP
2.41 - Alexander Parker (seventeenth century):
"Those who are brought to a pure still waiting upon God in the spirit, are
come nearer to the Lord than words are; for God is a spirit, and in the spirit
is he worshipped. In such a meeting there will be an unwillingness to part
asunder, being ready to say in yourselves, it is good to be here: and this is
the end of all words and writings to bring people to the eternal living
Word."
2.47 - Thomas Bodine (1980):
"As a meeting 'gathers', as each individual 'centres down', there gradually
develops a feeling of belonging to a group who are together seeking a sense of
the Presence. The 'I' in us begins to feel like 'we'. At some point - it may be
early in the meeting or it may be later, or it may never occur at all - we
suddenly feel a sense of unity, a sense of togetherness with one another and
with that something outside ourselves that we call God."
CREEDS
27.21 - John Wilhelm Rowntree (1904):
"Creeds are milestones, doctrines are interpretations: Truth, as George Fox was continually asserting, a seed with the power of growth, not a fixed crystal, be its facets never so beautiful."
27.22 - Isaac Penington, 1653
"All Truth is a shadow except the last, except the utmost; yet every Truth is true in its kind. It is substance in its own place, though it be but a shadow in another place (for it is but a reflection from an intenser substance); and the shadow is a true shadow, as the sub- stance is a true substance."
FRIENDS AND OTHER FAITHS
27.01 - William Penn (1693):
"The humble, meek, merciful, just, pious, and devout souls are everywhere of one religion; and when death has taken off the mask they will know one another, though the divers liveries they wear here makes them strangers."
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20.20 - Harvey Gillman (1988):
"For a Quaker, religion is not an external activity, concerning a special 'holy' part of the self. It is an openness to the world in the here and now with the whole of the self. If this is not simply a pious commonplace, it must take into account the whole of our humanity: our attitudes to other human beings in our most intimate as well as social and political relationships. It must also take account of our life in the world around us, the way we live, the way we treat animals and the environment. In short, to put it in traditional language, there is no part of ourselves and of our relationships where God is not present."
OUR COMMUNITY
10.01 - Isaac Penington, 1667
"Our life is love, and peace, and tenderness; and bearing one with another, and forgiving one another, and not laying accusations one against another; but praying one for another, and helping one up with a tender hand."
CLOSE RELATIONSHIPS Subsection on bereavement
22.90 - Margaret Torrie 1970
Margaret Torrie, with the help of her husband, Alfred, and others founded CRUSE in 1958 to help widows and their families. Its work helped to change social attitudes towards widowhood and to break through the existing taboos on death. She later wrote from her expeience of the counselling service thus established:
"There are clearly-marked signposts which, if followed, lead the way to recovery. First there has to be the wish, however transient, to find the way to better things. It is the beginning of hope, that basic ingredient for all life. From there, confidence and belief develop, and the certainty that in spite of all evidence to the contrary, good is in us and around us offering support. In such a situation of positive thinking we cease to be dreamers and accept fully our present lot. It is the material from which we are to build our future, whether long or short in time... The remarkable discovery we can make is that love has not deserted us, and that it is available to us now in a new way. Our own willingness to love and to give in the world about us is the secret of recovery and the new beginning."
CARING FOR ONE ANOTHER, Subsection on Elders and Overseers
12.08 - Beatrice Saxon Snell 1982
Beatrice Saxon Snell relates a story from her own experience, which reminds us that we are all potentially the instruments of God:
"I had a salutary lesson in sober thinking when I was first asked to become an elder. The invitation appalled me; I felt I was not old enough, had not been in the Society long enough; I suspected strongly that my monthly meeting had asked me on the inadequate grounds of vocal ministry; I read up the appropriate passages in Church government and felt still more appalled. Nevertheless I had been in the Society just long enough to know that the group often has a wisdom which can seldom be justified on logical grounds but which is, nevertheless, superior to the wisdom of the individual. I therefore went to consult a much respected elder of my acquaintance. She and her house were late Victorian; she sat on her ugly sofa with the poker up her spine, her feet set neatly together and her hands folded in her lap; and she let me talk myself out. When I had quite finished she inclined herself slightly towards me and said: 'My dear, we have to take what we can get.' I have since been convinced that this is a text which ought to be framed and hung up over the bed of every elder in the Society: it ought to be hung over the bed of every Friend who is tempted to refer to the elders as 'they'."
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These favourite passages have been selected by some of the members of our meeting - if any reader, from any meeting, would like to make their own suggestion for inclusion please contact michaelwoolley@chichesterquakers.org