The Quaker Doctrine of Inner Peace
(Pendle Hill Pamphlets)
by
Howard H. Brinton 1948
4.67 · Rating details · 9 ratings · 1 review
The Quaker way is so to order the inner life that outer pressures can be adequately met and dealt with.
This is not the method of the ascetic who conquers his sensual desires by violence toward himself, nor of the hermit who avoids his fellow men, nor of the stoic who makes himself independent and indifferent to the world around him.
It is rather an ordering of the inner life, so that there will be a proper balance of inner and outer, the inner holding first place.
In one sense we become independent of outer tumults and conflicts,
but in another sense we are not independent because we must seek to reproduce in the world around us the inner peace created within ourselves.
If we do not seek to reproduce our inner peace it will become lifeless and static.
Kindle Edition, 36 pages
Published February 3rd 2014 by Pendle Hill Publications
Pendle Hill Pamphlets
Review of The Quaker Doctrine of Inner Peace (Pendle Hill Pamphlets)
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Apr 09, 2021Mark rated it it was amazing
Shelves: pendle-hill
Published February 3rd 2014 by Pendle Hill Publications
Pendle Hill Pamphlets
Review of The Quaker Doctrine of Inner Peace (Pendle Hill Pamphlets)
comment
Apr 09, 2021Mark rated it it was amazing
Shelves: pendle-hill
Published in 1948, Brinton was the director of Pendle Hill and acknowledged scholar within the Society of Friends. In this brief pamphlet he explores our need for inner peace, the challenges to society when we people do not have it, the Quaker approach to finding it, and the positive results when found -- or rather, when allowed in.
For someone outside Quaker practice, this pamphlet provides another opportunity to explore its methods. I suspect those within the faith will also find value.
A few excerpts reflecting the pamphlet's great value in the pandemic and post-pandemic materialism and imperialism of American culture...
“For the Quaker, outward and inward combine in an intimate organic relation, but the inward is primary. ...“A person in danger of being overwhelmed by outside pressures can meet them best by increasing his inner dimensions.” (pp. 6-7)
“It would be interesting to speculate as to how much of our modern restlessness is due to our Puritan inheritance which demands a perpetual tension between the real and the ideal. ...Humanity united inseparably with the unceasing flux of material nature and sensual desire and postponing to the next world the goal of peace and freedom from guilt, was doomed to restlessness, to the hopeless search for the unattainable. The Absolute was vanished leaving only the relative. The goal receded into infinite distance leaving only means and tools. Modern man became a worshipper of tools. His philosophy is pragmatism. … Descendants of [American Puritanism] built a great material structure in which the human soul wanders homeless and without peace” (p. 9)
“Inward peace is the result of inward unity, not just a unity of ideas but a unity of the whole person, including those feelings and intuitions which arise out of the deeper areas of the soul which are beyond conscious thought. … We are speaking of the unity of will, not of substance.” (pp. 17-18)
“All men everywhere must come to realize that outer conflict results from inner conflict… genuine peace does not result from treaties or political institutions, least of all from fear inspired by force. Peace is received by human souls through resignation of the self-centered will and through expectancy.” (p. 30)
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