Beyond Majority Rule Conclusion & Appendix [wk 5] 7721

=====[wk 5]

Conclusion

This conclusion explores three topics. First, a theme which emerged in the historical section but which was not a prime focus for the contem­porary study is completed. Secondly, the writer attempts some unabashed speculation on the negative implications of American society for the future of Quakerism. And thirdly, he reflects upon Quakerism's possible significance for the future of American society.

Completing a Theme: Local Autonomy Versus Central Hegemony Today

The historical chapters of this study traced out a surprising tendency for central control to supersede the sovereignty of the monthly meeting. This accretion was unexpected, given the core Quaker idea that divine guidance is found in the religious experience of the gathered local com­munity. Our historical pages limited their attention to early growth in England. Are there any resonances of tension between local and central authority to be found in contemporary American Quakerism?

There are resonances. The best way to understand them is to recall that, unlike British Friends, American Quakers did not suffer widespread persecution in their early years. Hence, they felt little pressure to establish a superstructure as a defense against the government. The American ver­sion of London Meeting for Sufferings began only in the 1750s and never wielded the power of its much earlier British counterpart. There was no yearly meeting bureaucracy, no paid staff until well into the twentieth century.

Since the historical English pressures toward central leadership were lacking, the emergence of centripetal tendencies had to await the develop‑

109

ment of the twentieth century yearly meeting bureaucracy. The greater efficiency and impact of central preparation of religious books and cen­tral coordination of social welfare programs and protest in contemporary American society has meant growth of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting budget to something over one million dollars per year.' Friends with special interest in the matters covered by the Yearly Meeting budget gravitate towards yearly meeting committees and projects and spend proportionate­ly less time on their own monthly meetings. This emphasis leads to cleavage. One Friend explains:

Interest turns someone into what we call a "Yearly Meeting Friend:' Volunteers and employees of Yearly Meeting tend, therefore, to be the most committed, the most "far out" on issues. Their commitment makes them strong on leadership. The real tension between their actions and the more conservative leanings of many monthly meetings, where less socially aware Friends tend to be found, comes to be a sore point.

In practice, complaints from monthly meetings often concentrate upon the autonomy of the Yearly Meeting staff and its apparent lack of sen­sitivity to the reluctance of monthly meetings to endorse its acts. Unhappy Friends also claim that the large Yearly Meeting budget for social welfare programs drains local money to the Yearly Meeting with the result that the local projects of monthly meetings are often overshadowed. (Those who are interested in social welfare matters often tend to follow the money to the Yearly Meeting where others of like conviction are already gathered.) One of the modes of making this local unhappiness felt is annual foot-dragging over increases in the Yearly Meeting budget.

As a balance to this dissatisfaction, even Friends who are saddened by expansion and tendencies of what they term the "Philadelphia Vatican" comment upon the value to all meetings of the central services provided. First Day school materials and media coverage of Friends public testimonies at the Yearly Meeting level are common instances of this counterweight.

Yearly Meeting leaders, sensitive to the delicacy of the balance, have made notable efforts to meet valid criticism by adjusting central procedures. Public actions by the spirited members of the Peace Committee have been kept under tighter rein in response to local criticisms. For example, letters of complaint to foreign heads of state must now be approved by Represen­tative Meeting or its Executive Committee before they can be dispatched. Yearly Meeting staff members have become more alert to the need to prepare the way for programs they are interested in by visiting monthly meetings, informing them of their intended activities, and obtaining their blessing. However, in spite of many such efforts to temper central

110

autonomy in recent years, unhappiness in monthly meetings continues.

In sum, the centrifugal genius of Quaker tradition is in tension with the centripetal force of central effectiveness. But the tension seems a healthy one which increases central accountability, expands communica­tion, and keeps individual monthly meetings from gradually drifting into an isolation which could weaken the cohesion of the Religious Society of Friends. At least for the moment, there is a dynamic tension which bodes well for the Quaker future.

Speculation: The Future of Quakerism

A topic of serious concern among members of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting is the significant decline in the number of adult members. In the twenty years between 1960 and 1980, the community lost adult members at a rather steady annual rate just under one-half percent a year—a decline of almost ten percent over twenty years. When Friends add to this decrease the problem that many of the 11,000 adult members in 1980 neither attended meeting for worship nor responded to monthly meeting requests for financial support, they become fearful that the Society of Friends in the Philadelphia region is in an unhealthy condition.² Friends wonder why.

Our visits to meeting for business at various monthly meetings fre­quently made us ask whether we had selected a bad night. Attendance of even 10 percent of the members of the meeting began to seem quite acceptable after a few such visits. A number of Friends volunteered that they were disturbed by the paucity of participants in local meetings for business. This attendance record contrasted vividly with that of Represen­tative Meeting where at least 70 percent of the members could be relied upon to be present each month.

In reflecting on possible explanations for the contrasting attendance of these two groups, we found our thoughts moving paradoxically towards the great strengths of Quaker decision making. We have already noted that out of a united decision also comes a high degree of obligation to

carry out the decision and make it work. Every participant either actively favored the proposal or, at least, could have stopped the action but did

not. The price one pays for attending a meeting for business is that one leaves with new obligations. The individual cannot claim to be merely a disinterested observer.

If one adds to this obligation the presupposition in Quaker decisions that each participant is willing to start from the viewpoint of the group's

111

good and not from a personal perspective, one suddenly comes face-to-face with an even broader price demanded of the participant. Each per­son must make a fundamental shift from the atomic individuality which marks American society and embrace a communitarian starting point.

Could it not be that Quakerism is a victim of the general culture? Peo­ple socialized into the atomism (or individualism) which has been fun­damental to Western thought since the rise of liberalism need special abilities if they are successfully to shift into a subculture which expects a communitarian self-understanding. The Quaker who mistakenly reduces Friends decision making to democracy sees no advantage in the extra time taken by "quaint" procedures. "Why not just vote and get it over with?" is the sort of question sometimes asked. The individual who must ask this sort of question is approaching Quakerism from the outside, from a thought-world alien to its very foundations.

Such a person neither accepts the communitarian self-understand­ing nor the obligations which the decisions of the meeting for business place upon the individual. The best way to avoid the obligations is by avoiding the meetings. The absent Friend does not incur the burden of the Friend who is present and who therefore is personally responsible for the decision.

An individual opting for absence has plenty of support from social trends. Fewer Friends are self-employed and more women have full-time positions in the workforce in addition to family responsibilities. Families move frequently and tend to be less interested in any communities larger than their own family unit. In other words, the economic and social trends in our individual-centered society provide a constant, pervasive impetus towards thinking of a communitarian woridview as an impossible burden.

If our speculation is right, it explains why we found the Quaker business procedure so effectively utilized in most of the meetings we visited. Those in attendance were generally capable of entering the com-munitarian thought-world and accepting the obligations the meeting was to impose. Friends unable to shift into that world and to bear its burdens tended not to come. Put another way, one reason the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting faces declining membership statistics is that it is faithful to its heritage, a heritage that more and more of its members are incapable of sharing.

Such an explanation fits rather well with the responses we received in casual encounters with individuals who had given up their Quakerism. These people consistently spoke highly of the social testimonies of Friends and of Quaker tolerance for diversity of belief within the community. But they revealed puzzlement, boredom, and irritation when the conversa­tion turned to the "peculiar" Quaker approach to decision making.

Supposing for the moment that our analysis is correct, the avenues open to Friends are rather limited. First, they could take the tack followed by groups like the Old Colony Mennonites who, when their culture was being eroded by the world, required members to divorce themselves from contact with worldly life and to immerse themselves instead in the Men­nonite community Given the Quaker genius for full involvement in American life, such a prospect of segregation seems out of the question.

A second approach might be to emphasize, in the education of both adult members and of the children of members, the possibility of "nonatomic" starting points for human life. Instead of focusing on themselves as individual atoms, as units basically separate from the world about them, Friends would be taught to see themselves fundamentally as participants in larger communities, and only secondarily as atomic in­dividuals. Friends grammar and high schools, study groups, and First Day schools are all obvious places for explicitly exploring the implications for human life of a communitarian self-understanding. Surely a religious socie­ty which includes in its membership a notable percentage of people com­mitted to counterculture lifestyles should find it easy to carry its critical analysis of American society to a level deep enough for the limitations of atomic self-understanding to be perceived. In contrast, the Quaker com-munitarian presuppositions might be offered as a sound alternative world view.

A third mode of confronting the problem might be to reemphasize the importance of religious experience in Quaker life. The gathered meeting for worship could be cultivated once again through special at­tention in Quaker magazines, more emphasis upon religious retreats where private and group worship might be deepened, and other attempts at con­sciousness raising.

Simultaneously, Friends charged with interviewing applicants for monthly meeting membership might become much more sensitive as to whether the candidate values the religious experience in Quaker life and can understand and rate highly the gathered condition of a meeting. All too often, such matters may be considered inappropriate areas for inquiry; and committees which screen applicants may content themselves with the assumption that the prospective Friend finds Quaker social testimony or fellowship attractive.

Similar questions might also be asked in making decisions about whether to retain inactive resident members on the rolls of the monthly meeting. Retaining as members virtually all who have not explicitly asked that their names be removed from the list—the practice of many monthly meetings—tends to reduce membership to a meaningless level; one can remain a Friend even if one's participation in the community's life is limited to occasional inquiries into the state of one's grandfather's grave. Honest­ly recognizing that such individuals are not full members might underscore the importance for Quaker life of the shared religious experience which gathers individual members beyond atomic existence into a unity. Once again, the experiential root of Quakerism might receive the prominence it deserves.

Speculation: Quakerism's Message for the American Future

A number of the writer's confreres in graduate school, upon hearing that this study dealt with Quaker decision making, presumed that he would find the Quaker process to be a variant on the unanimous consent of the United States Senate or the tendency of United Nations committee chairmen to declare that "there being no objection, the committee approves the following:' Some Friends suggested the same conclusions, often point­ing to the United Nations in particular as a secular example of Quaker method.

The author's research has convinced him that almost exactly the op­posite is true. In the United States Senate, unanimous consent is typical­ly a device for approving matters which arouse no one's opposition and is used as a method of expedition. Unanimity thus means that the matter is trivial or noncontroversial. The members of the Senate are not called upon to change from the atomic vantage point of their own and their con­stituents' interests to a community-based perspective. They simply affirm that the matter does not adversely affect their set of interests.

In the United Nations, unanimous consent is very frequently a way for nations to avoid going on record. By making arrangements behind the scenes, nations reach a compromise inconsistent with the official formula­tions of their individual foreign policies but seen as advantageous, here and now, to their national interests. By the subterfuge of failure to vote, they can preserve their officially formulated positions, yet serve their im­mediate national needs. Such a procedure may imitate some aspects of Quaker decision making, but it lacks both the change from national to community interest and the commitment to participate in achieving the agreed goal which are central to the Friends process

Another area suggested from time to time as an instance of the Friends style of decision is the deliberations of the corporate board. Although we do not wish to argue that such instances never occur, we must suggest that many apparent similarities between the Quaker style of decision mak­ing and those of the board room are only coincidental. We recall a Friend who commented enthusiastically about a Philadelphia corporation he

knew which reached unanimous decisions at its board meetings with on­ly rare exceptions. However, another Friend, a member of a number of

corporate boards, remarked:

Sure, corporations' boards of directors almost always agree. That's just good business. You pick a management team and then you back them unanimously until some major segment of the board is dissatisfied enough to want to replace the team. Until you want to make that major change, you would only be weakening management unnecessarily by voting no or no confidence. So, when you vote yes, it has little in common with Quaker unity. This kind of yes just means you haven't enough votes to win yet.

In short, apparent parallels to Friends decision making seem to fall far short because they do not demand of the participant the characteristic Quaker change of viewpoint or burden the individual with the Quaker sense of obligation to make the decision work out successfully. In a funda­mental sense, the supposed parallels differ from Friends decisions because the former do not presuppose that participants are in community.

Our speculation thus raises a fundamental issue. Individualized, atomic man cries out for community. He or she complains because of the inability to participate in a satisfying way in decision making that affects his or her life.⁵ But individualized, atomic man is incapable of communi­ty because of the inability to surrender the individual-focused starting point which has been fundamental to Western culture since the begin-fling of liberalism.⁶ Therefore all attempts by a person whose socializa­tion has been locked into the atomic thought-world to achieve the com­munity longed for are doomed to fail, doomed to imitate the externals of a participation based upon communion without ever quite attaining the communion itself that would transform those externals into reality.

Roberto Unger, Harvard political philosopher, argues forcefully that now is the time for a "total criticism;' a critique of social theory which would not rest content to challenge parts of the present thought-world but would attempt to challenge that world's very roots. The outcome would

be a turning away from liberalism's atomic man so that tomorrow's man could once again escape the isolation of viewpoint basic to liberalism and find a fuller identity as part of an "organic group" whose good and goals would be the initial point of reference? Tomorrow's world of thought would go beyond liberalism in order to embrace a new level of community.

Our speculation leaves both Quakerism and the American future in doubt. If the American society becomes even more deeply mired in an atomic world view, we can expect the number of people capable of living in both an American and a Quaker universe to diminish gradually and constantly. Eventually, this could spell the end to such Quaker units as Philadelphia Yearly Meeting.

On the other hand, if the hunger for community is strong and grow­ing, might not the number of Americans who are ready for a group such as Friends be expected to increase? In that case, Friends would still face the great challenge of helping these people to enter the Quaker experience deeply enough to be able to change their basic thought-world from the atomic to the communitarian. But, if Friends are successful, groups like the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting might be the vanguard of a new revolution.

And so we conclude with Quakerism in an ambiguous state. Will the Religious Society of Friends become a victim of the atomic society or a beacon drawing that society to the community which its members crave?

Alfred North Whitehead remarks: "Profound flashes of insight remain ineffective for centuries, not because they are unknown, but by reason of dominant interests which inhibit reaction to that type of generality. The history of religion is the history of the countless generations required for interest to attach itself to profound ideas¹⁸

Centuries ago, George Fox found on Pendle Hill an experience that spoke to his condition. Is it too much to suppose that modern seekers might find in the Religious Society of Friends the religious experience and worldview that would speak to theirs?

 

Appendix A, Appendix B, Notes, Bibliography

Appendix A The Christian Tradition of Divine Guidance

Many a Quaker whom the author has interviewed during research for this book has suggested that the Friends decision process is something doubly miraculous; not only does it achieve harmony without resorting to voting, it was virtually revealed to George Fox and is unheard of elsewhere in the Christian tradition. The harmony derived from disparate opinions may indeed qualify at times for a miraculous label. However it is the purpose of this appendix to demonstrate that Friends decision mak­ing is not a process which abruptly began with the inspirations of George Fox but, instead, is an important example of a rich tradition which has marked the Christian community from the days of the Apostles and which especially flourished at the time Fox founded his movement.

Where, then, did early Quakers get their extraordinarily practical theology of divine guidance? One source is Scripture.

Acts 15 recounts a church council at Jerusalem in which the Apostles and the elders decided to send a letter to the Gentile Christians freeing them from the obligation of circumcision. The letter included the clause, "it has seemed good to the Holy Ghost, . . . and to us. . . . " Robert Barclay's Anarchy of the Ranters focused on this episode to explain Quaker

practice.²                      -

Did George Fox simply read the Book of Acts, meditate on its implica­tions, and create the Quaker process? Hardly. Fox's procedure was not nearly as singular in the mid-seventeenth century as it may seem in the late-twentieth. An overview of the precursors of the Quaker method will reveal the extent to which Quaker procedures were already in the air.

Medieval Catholic Practice

Medieval Catholic procedure is helpful for indicating how wide­spread was the expectation that the Holy Spirit would be active in direct­ing the outcome of ecclesiastical decision making. For example, bishops were elected by the clergy assigned to each cathedral (the "cathedral chapter"). At times factions would vie for a majority of votes in a manner

119

which, to put it mildly, was unedifying. As a corrective, the Third Lateran Council (1170) decreed that in all the world's dioceses, the electors more noted for their virtue, zeal, and disinterestedness—the sanior pars—must all vote with the majority if the election was to be valid. Unanimity of the san-ior pars was taken as a sign of divine endorsement of the elected candidate.³

The example illustrates the early theoretical conflict between modern majority rule and the more primitive search for truths Canon law showed a dual allegiance. On the one hand, everyone who was affected by a deci­sion had a right to a voice in its approval. This is the Justinian's maxim Quod omnes tangit ab omnibus approbetur.⁵ Balancing this introduction of diverse interests was an emphasis on the unity in truth which should prevail where the Spirit is active. One device for fostering such unity without disenfranchising those with a mere factional spirit was to demand that there be not merely a majority in favor of a candidate, but a majority including all who constituted the sanior pars.

The same principle emerged elsewhere in canonical thought. When the well-being of the whole diocesan corporation is in question, said the famous canonist Zabarella (c. 1335-1417), the bishop cannot act alone; he must have either the consent of the whole chapter or at least of its major et sanior pars.⁶ This notion that God's will can be found in the unanimity of the most upright members of a decision making body has been traced through hundreds of years in the governance of the dioceses of Great Britain?

But the flowering of medieval belief that the Spirit speaks in the unanimous actions of a governing body is the theory of Church Coun­cils. As medieval political historian Brian Tierney has clearly demonstrated,⁸ the principles of Conciliar theory in the fourteenth century derive direct­ly from twelfth and thirteenth century canon law. Nicholas of Cusa, a fif­teenth century political theorist and theologian, reflects the tension within that legal tradition between majoritarian and unitarian approaches. On occasion, Cusa alleges that the majority side always expresses the will of the SpiritY He, however, cannot long remain satisfied with mere majority rule. In an attempted compromise of systems, Cusa "insists that the minori­ty formally endorse the decision of the majority after the vote so as to produce the required unanimity especially in the definition of doctrine "¹⁰

But then Cusa confronted a practical problem. He was a member of the anti-papal Council of Basle (1431-1438). The majority voted to hold a council of reunion with the Greeks at Avignon; but there was deep disagreement by a minority of prelates (fifteen out of fifty-two present) whose honest zeal for reunion made them, in Cusa's eyes, the sanior though far minor pars.¹¹ Cusa felt constrained to desert Basle and endorse the papal side. The Council of Basle, in spite of its large majorities, could not achieve the unity which is the mark of a true council. After all, Cusa had written long before Basle that "on account of the unanimity on which the authority of the acts of a council depends, we know that the Holy Spirit, who is the spirit of union and harmony [concordantiae] has in­spired the council's decision.¹² Conversely, "where there is dissent, there is no council.

The conciliar thought which Cusa enunciated so clearly, with its cen­tral emphasis on how the will of God was to be found in the unity behind the decrees of church councils, had direct impact on English parliamen­tary theory in the days of Henry Viii's establishment of a national church. Parliament emerged as an interim substitute for a worldwide church coun­cil and took on all the latter's attributes. One of Henry's most prominent apologists, Christopher St. German, wrote, "It cannot be thought that a Statute that is made by authority of the whole Realm, as well as of the King and of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, as of all the commons, will recite a thing against the Truth:'¹⁴ Ecclesiastical historian George Hunston Williams sums up the argument: "The nation ultimately, Parliament representatively, was in the Henrician theory the King's body political and ecclesiastic as distinguished from his body natural. St. German regarded Parliament so conceived as a national mixed synod, guided by the Holy Spirit, and as such incapable of error, in effect, infallible. The King in Parliament, as it were, can do no wrong."¹⁵

Because of this approach, Anglicanism tended to consider Parliament as not only national diet but national synod.¹⁶ One channel, therefore, by which Catholic conciliar infallibility reached Fox's England would be the conciliar rhetoric surrounding Parliament •17

The Anabaptist Tradition

An altogether independent channel of transmission to Fox's England was the nonmagisterial Protestant tradition, especially that of the Anabap­tists. Divine inspiration was introduced dramatically by Henry Pfeiffer and Thomas Muntzer at Muhlhausen in 1525 when the two revolutionaries replaced the town council with the so-called eternal council representative of the revolutionary classes. Apparently, the people would elect pastors who in turn would deliberate in a council. The council would express the truths the people held but could not articulate.

This was to be an eschatological council, a Konzil der Endzeit which would establish true church order as the final step prior to the Second Coming of Christ. Although we do not know its decision making proce­dures, it certainly was supposed to produce decisions guaranteed by the Holy Spirit. Details are unclear since the eternal, council was overthrown after only a few months and Muntzer and Pfeiffer, were beheaded by Landgrave Philip of Hesse.

In variant forms, the notion of an eschatological council continued to appear in the Radical Reformation. In August 1527, two other Anabaptist leaders, John Hut and John Denck, summoned a council (later termed the Martyrs' Synod) at Augsburg to discuss immediate preparations for the Second Coming which they hoped would occur on Pentecost Sunday the year following. Williams summed up their expectations: "As once in the upper room in Jerusalem the first apostolic council had convened and the flames of the Spirit had descended upon the participants, so in the full­ness of the dispensations, the Spirit would come again in power, anoint­ing the new apostles for the last days before the millenium."¹⁸

Yet another Anabaptist version of conciliar thought, exemplified by Baithasar Hubmaier who taught at Nicolsburg in Moravia in 1527, was that individual local churches may indeed err, but the universal church could not. Therefore he was ready to submit to a truly universal council where the Spirit of God, which moved freely in each redeemed person, could offset by its dynamic presence the partiality of fleshly wills.

Finally, we might note the principle of the Sitzerrecht or Lex Sedentium— the belief much discussed among Anabaptists that the local community of the faithful Christians would be inspired by the Holy Spirit when together its members sought a common understanding of passages from Scripture.¹⁹ Interest in this approach to inspired interpretation of Scripture remained alive in Anabaptist circles over the years.

We have concentrated on Anabaptist traditions precisely because this is probably the safest way to avoid being caught in a morass. The imme‑

diate origin of Quaker beliefs and practices has been argued with much

vigor and little satisfaction for generations. It is difficult to determine these origins just because there are so many plausible candidates! Among

the sects abounding in Britain just prior to Fox's time, a large number

reveal one or the other of the doctrines that would appear in Quakerism. In general, what these sects have in common is that they appealed to the

50 percent of the populace who could be labelled masterless men and that they shared at least some Anabaptist roots, enough at least so that the no‑

tion of divine inspiration of the united community would be part of their religious world. In discussing each group, we will emphasize the doctrines strongly affirmed by them which were to become mainstays of Quaker belief.

Possible Anabaptist Channels to Quaker Origins

Early Mystics

Quaker historians have traced the list of the sixteenth century Anabap­tist mystics who already proclaimed the characteristic Quaker belief in direct inner communion of man with God and used such "Quaker" terms as the Inward Light, Inward Word, and Divine Seed° But they can allege no direct link between these writers and George Fox. For example, William Braithwaite writes: "George Fox was not a reader of books other than the Bible, nor a student of movements, and he reveals in his writings very slight direct acquaintance with the formative literature of mystical religion. This is true also of Dewsbury, Nayler, Howgil, Burrough, and other ear­ly makers of Quakerism. 1121

Although Rufus M. Jones has difficulty finding much evidence of direct influence in the writings of these earliest Friends, it remains true that Judge Hotham, George Fox's protector, wrote a life of Boehme. Hotham's brother Charles, also an acquaintance of Fox, was Boehme's translator.

The Familists

A second candidate for an Anabaptist channel to the Quakers is Henry Nicholas's Family of Love or Familists. This group came to England late in the first half of the sixteenth century and sprang momentarily into pro­minence again during the Commonwealth. The community believed in an Inner Light and held strongly that, contrary to Calvin and Luther, in­ner perfection could be attained by every man. In addition to these cen­tral "Quaker" tenets, the Familists foreshadowed Quakers in such par­ticulars as their refusal to take oaths, opposition to war and capital punish­ment, dislike of ceremonious worship, preference for simple speaking, and marriage without an officiating minister. Yet the Familists did prac­tice water baptism and had a hierarchy of rulers. Their exact mode of wor­ship remains in doubt²

Although many early Quaker recruits did in fact come from Familist backgrounds and some unusual Familist doctrines (for example, the celestial flesh of Christ) appear in the second generation of Quaker writing,

most of the beliefs Familists shared with Quakers were also shared with General Baptists or with Seekers. There is no evidence that George Fox had contact with Familists in the days of his own spiritual searching but plenty of indication that his early spiritual homes were among Baptists and Seekers. Church historian George Huntston Williams is certainly

right when he comments that morphologically the English Familists
represent a transitional stage between evangelical Anabaptism and the completely nonsacramental Spiritualism of Quakerism." He may be over­stating his case, however, when he adds that "to a certain extent geneti­cally" the Familists led into Quakerism. William Braithwaite's observa­tion that any clear channel of Familist influence on Fox is "not yet dis­covered" remains as true today as when Braithwaite wrote in 1912.23

The Seekers

A third approach to Quaker genesis is that mysterious collection of silent worshippers known as Seekers. Holding that no true Church ex­isted in their age of apostacy, they gathered to worship in silence and awaited new revelation. They refused even the Anabaptist sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist until such time as worthy ministers—men of apostolic calibre—should appear. There is indication that some Seekers eventually doubted that the sacraments would be needed even should the apostolic age be restored. Like other independent sects, the Seekers op­posed labelling the days of the week and months of the year by their com­mon names since these commemorated pagan deities. This, too, would eventually be a Quaker testimony.

Further evidence of Seeker influence upon Quakers is that the early name Friends took on themselves was Children of the Light, a name in vogue among Seekers. Since George Fox spent much time among Seekers in the period just before the foundation of Quakerism and gathered so many converts from Seekers, it is not hard to see why Rufus Jones con­cludes that Quaker worship procedures "apparently came from the societies of Seekers—in the northern counties of England:' Arnold Lloyd goes further and suggests that the probable source of the Quaker deci­sion making process was also a Seeker practice, although he provides no substantiation ?4

(General) Baptists, Especially John Smyth

It is important to notice, however, that the situation may not be as straightforward as it appears to be. The peculiar title, Children of the Light, was not just a Seeker phrase; it also was in use among Continental

124

Anabaptists. Thomas Edwards, in his 1646 handbook of heresies, Gangraena, informed his readers that in the years just after 1640, the "Seekers greatly increased, Independent Baptists leaving their congrega­tions; not only the people, but the ministers:" Writing in the same year, Baillie affirmed that Spilsby, a Baptist leader, "acknowledges, that many Baptists become Seekers. ^"125 Although it would appear that the misty origins of Seekerism were native English, not Continental Baptist, by Fox's day the line between Baptist and Seeker may have been very easy to cross. Both Seekers and Baptists held the same doctrines, with the difference that Baptists practiced baptism and the Lord's Supper, Seekers did without them at least until worthy apostles might be raised up by God.

Such similarities between the two sects explains why Fox found the soil so fertile in both communities. His Journal records him preaching in 1647 and 1648 at various Baptist meetings. In 1649, he had a "loving" religious discussion with the celebrated Baptist preacher Samuel Oates and others. Steeplehouse—Fox's standard epithet for a church building—was not his own invention but the common usage among Baptists prior to Fox. Appropriately, William Braithwaite sees in the "broken" Baptist community at Nottinghamshire which Fox encountered in 1647-48 "the channel along which many of the Baptist influences which affected Quakerism probably came. "²⁶ Rufus Jones urges that this same encounter "first supplied George Fox with congenial religious fellowship and, under his leadership, developed into the earliest Quaker congregation?⁷ In sup­port of this view one can cite such early sources as Ephraim Pagitt, Fox's contemporary, who wrote "the Quaker is an upstart branch of the Anabaptists. 1128

It would be good to underscore here that the (Ana)Baptists to which we have been referring are the group known in England as General Bap­tists. They held the Arminian notion that salvation was open to all men; opposing this view were the Particular Baptists who maintained a true Calvinist notion of predestination: only a few among earth's denizens were numbered among God's elect. Nottinghamshire, where Fox made his first convert and formed his first community, was the location of one of the two original communities of English General Baptists, and the neighbor­hood was heavily blessed with Baptist communities which owed their origins to the Baptist church founded by John Smyth two generations previously or to churches in communion with Smyth's group?⁹

John Smyth's Baptists are especially interesting. They began in England, but persecution forced Smyth to lead part of the community

125

from Gainsborough to Amsterdam in 1607. His community, feeling very close in belief to Amsterdam's Waterlander Mennonite Church, united with the Mennonites in 1615, although maintaining separate services until 1639. This allegiance with the Mennonites reinforced Smyth's own theological growth. A strongly spiritualist dimension of the Waterlanders included disenchantment with prepared preaching baptism and communion in favor of silent meditation together. Smyth's writings reveal the language one would later find in Fox, that action was to be taken "for the cleering of the truth" and "that the truth wee walk in may be manifested' Wor­ship was apparently to include much silence, spontaneous speaking by any member when moved by the Spirit, the exclusion of preestablished forms of worship such as reciting memorized prayers or even reading Scripture as part of the service. Thus:

The Spirit is quenched by silence when fit matter is revealed to one that sitteth by and he withholdeth it in tyme of prophesying; the Spirit is quenched by sett formes of worship, for therein the spirit is not at liber­ty to utter it self, but is bounded in. . .; Saying set formes of worship by rote is quenching the Spirit; & Reading sett formes or worship out of a book is quenching the Spirit; for in the one the Spirit is not manifested but the strength of the memory, in the other the matter is not brought out of the hart, but out of the book; & so in neyther of them the Spirit is at liberty

The resemblance to a Quaker meeting for worship is manifest.

Even the mode of dealing with those who erred in their participation in the worship was similar. In 1608 Smyth said, "If any thing doubtful or false be delivered in tyme of spirituall worship it is to be examyned & censured afterwards."³⁰ Fox would write in 1659 "that no Friends judge one another in meetings; but if any be moved to speak [to such,] to do it after meeting in private."³¹

Smyth, the father of English General Baptists, and his flock opposed going to law against other members, opposed the taking of oaths, found the morality of war dubious at best, urged the priority of the inward inspiration of God over the outward scripture, and allowed that if any believed in Christ's "celestial flesh," Smyth would not "refuse brother­hood with him.¹¹³² This position by Smyth weakens considerably George Huntston Williams's argument that the source of the spiritual flesh theol­ogy of Robert Barclay and George Keith had to be the English Familists.³³ In all these positions, Smyth foreshadowed characteristic Quaker notions.

Even the idea that women should be allowed to preach—a basic tenet

126

of Fox³⁴—seems to have started in the Baptist churches of Holland. It reached American Baptists by 1636 and English Baptists by 1641

As far as governance was concerned, Anabaptists generally believed in discipline imposed by the community, for the community was a school where Christ was the Master. In theory, at least, the Anabaptist pastors and other leaders were not so powerful as officials of the magisterial refor­mation churches. Smyth added a dimension, again important for Quakerism, that the hierarchical arrangement of officers found among Presbyterians and other Amsterdam Baptists was dropped. Instead, there were simply two kinds of officers: pastors—who could perform such func­tions as teaching or governing—and deacons who worried about the prac­tical details of the church.

This elimination of hierarchy among spiritual leaders had the prac­tical effect of giving the congregation (which elected them) true authority over its elders in a way that had not been possible under a hierarchical structure ?6

English Baptist communities added a variant to Smyth's two-level structure. Ministers were not entrusted with the guidance of a single com­munity but travelled constantly. In practice, this seems to have diminished the authority of ministers in local matters and enhanced the local deacons.

The earliest Quaker communities of which we have clear record—those formed from Westmoreland Seekers in 1652 and 1653—seem to have adopted the Baptist pattern. Friends whose talent for preaching was singular were recognized and encouraged to travel among the communities as unordained ministers; each local community was governed by its own elders (overseers)⁷

Finally, Barclay cites a tantalizing letter describing the business meeting as conducted in Smyth's congregation. We learn that, although all those present "had free liberty of voting decisively, and of debate;' yet "nothing must go by number or plurality of voices, and there must be no moderator, or prolocutor, for the order of their action. ¹¹³⁸ It would appear that a meeting which proceeds without totalling the number of votes or seeking pluralities is, in essence, following the Quaker procedure sketched in the quotation at the head of this chapter. We may have in Smyth's practice the genesis of Quaker decision making.

It would be a great relief, of course, if we would now provide some document enlarging on Smyth's decision making procedure, showing that it continued to be in vogue among the General Baptists Fox met in 1647-48 or the Seekers in 1652, and that Fox, recognizing its appropriateness,

127

adopted it. No such magic document has been discovered. We are left with the possibility that Smyth's procedure did influence Fox. To be sure, the channel of influence could have been either the obvious one—through the Baptist communities Fox met—or the less expected route—through the Seeker communities with their large membership of former Baptists.

Uncertain as we are about the method of transmission, we, can be more confident in claiming that, at a minimum, Smyth's congregation was the principal medium through which Continental Anabaptism was transferred into England. Part and parcel of that Anabaptism was the belief in divine guidance of communities seeking God's will together. George Fox and his early followers read little other than their Bibles. Their doctrine came from beliefs that were in the air and in the various religious communities which they visited. As Agnes Tierney wrote, "Indeed, there was hardly a truth in the message of Fox that hadn't been held by some sect either in England or on the Continent:'³⁹ But Fox "discovered" the truths he was to preach through the gradual religious insights reported in his Journal. If today's scholar can suggest possible sources for Fox's idea, there is no way to go beyond that and certify the particular genesis of each of those ideas.

Rufus Jones is helpful on this point:

It may be taken for granted, I think, that Fox was unaware of his immense debt to the contemporary movements and spiritual interpreters. The ideas and central truths which burst into his consciousness as "openings;' "in­sights;' and "incursions" were in the air. They were in books and were being preached in closets, if not from house tops, but they were not real to Fox, and did not move him to action until they surged up in him and were born of his flesh and blood.. . . He did not originate the ideas which his movement incarnated, but he personally discovered them, identified himself with them, poured his life through them. . .

A Divinely-Inspired Army: The Putney Debates

As a final illustration of the extent to which divine guarantees of deci­sion making were expected in the England of 1647, let us look at the ad­vice offered by Oliver Cromwell at points of disagreement during the Putney debates of his Council of the Army.

The participants in these debates included State Church Presbyterians, Independent Congregationalists who shared much Presbyterian theology but advocated toleration of all sects, and sectaries with Anabaptist and other separatist allegiances who also sought toleration.

Cromwell first proposed that a committee be formed of spokesmen for all viewpoints to compare ideas "that we may understand really, as before God, the bottom of our desires, and that we may seek God together, and see if God will give us an uniting spirit:' He urged that they agree to this procedure, for "I doubt not but, if in sincerity we are willing to submit to that light that God shall cast in among us, God will unite us, and make us of one heart and one mind:'

Later the same day in 1647, Cromwell returned to the point. The group should adjourn "to seek the guidance of God, and to recover that presence of God that seems to withdraw from us." The differing parties would gather again the next afternoon "to see what God will direct you to say to us, that whilst we are going one way, and you another, we be not both destroyed. This required [guidance from the] Spirit:'

A few days later, Cromwell opened the final Putney session by sug­gesting "that everyone might speak their experiences as the issue of what God had given, in answer to their prayers:' After many had spoken, he remarked:

Truly we have heard speaking to us; and I cannot but think that in many of those things God hath spoke to us. I cannot but think that in most that have spoke there hath been something of God laid forth to us; and yet there have been several contradictions in what hath been spoken. But certainly God is not the author of contradictions.

He concluded his remarks with his own criteria for spiritual discernment.

I think that this law and this [word] speaking [within us], which truly is in every man who hath the Spirit of God, we are to have a regard to. And this to me seems to be very clear, how we are to judge of the ap­prehension of men [as] to particular cases, whether it be of God or no. When it doth not carry its evidence with it, of the power of God to con­vince us clearly, our best way is to judge the conformity or disformity of [it with] the law written within us, which is the law of the Spirit of God, the mind of God, the mind of Christ.. . . I do not know any out­ward evidence of what proceeds from the Spirit of God more clear than this, the appearance of meekness and gentleness and mercy and patience and forbearance and love, and a desire to do good to all, and to destroy none that can be saved¹

Indeed, reliance on the Spirit for major decision making was in the air. Notice, however, that Cromwell's procedure, although it seeks unity, does not require it prior to taking action. Note, too, that Cromwell cannot simply state, as would George Fox, that there is something of God speak­ing in every man; for Cromwell, one should only listen to "every man who hath the Spirit'—which is a more appropriately Calvinist turn of phrase

consistent with nonuniversal predestination.

The criteria Cromwell offered for testing whether an utterance was from God or not were highly vague: one judges the "conformity or disfor-mity" of the utterance with "the law written within us:' Then Cromwell quickly employed the gentle style of speech as further gauge of whether the speech was true—a weak test indeed, since one's style of speech can be mere affectation. As is noted in Part One of this book, this ambiguity also plagued Fox and his coworkers.

Appendix B A Quaker Glossary

Attender: Someone who participates in Quaker worship but who has not yet sought and gained membership in the meeting.

Centered: Condition of an individual or group in touch with the divine presence.

Covered Meeting: Condition found in a worshiping group when an awareness and presence of God is felt in its midst.

Clearness: Confidence that an action is consistent with the divine will. Convinced Friend: A person who has been converted to Quakerism.

Disorderly Walkers: Quakers whose conduct is contrary to the community's ethical standards.

Disownment: Excommunication; loss of membership in the monthly meeting. First Day: Sunday.

First Publishers of Truth (Valiant Sixty): A group of sixty itinerant preachers who, with George Fox, were the initial preachers of the Quaker gospel. Twelve of these First Publishers were women.

Gathered Meeting: see Covered Meeting.

In the Lift: An insight or decision reached under the influence of God. Inner Light: The presence of Christ (that of God) in every person. Leadings: The sense of divine guidance or revelation in any action.

Meeting House: The Quaker equivalent of a church building. The term is intended to be suggestive of simplicity.

Meeting for Business: A gathering of Friends for the purpose of making business decisions.

Meeting for Sufferings: A body selected to do the work of London Yearly Meeting when the latter is not in session.

Meeting for Worship: A gathering of Friends for the purpose of worship.

Minute: A summary statement of an agreement reached in a meeting for business.

Monthly Meeting: A local community of Friends (akin to a parish) in which membership resides. So named because, by custom, the community meets once a month to conduct a meeting for business.

Opening: see Leading.

Quarterly Meeting: A regional unit, comprised of two or more monthly meetings, which meets on a quarterly basis to conduct a meeting for business.

Representative Meeting: A body selected to do the work of a yearly meeting when the latter is not in session; the American equivalent of London Yearly Meeting's Meeting for Sufferings.

Sense of the Meeting: The harmony (union, unity) reached by participants in a business meeting.

Truth: A synonym for Christ or the divine guide; the complex of Quaker ethical traditions; the Quaker gospel.

Valiant Sixty: see First Publishers of Truth.

Yearly Meeting: An annual gathering for worship and business open to members of all monthly meetings within a large region. This body is akin to a diocese in other Christian communities, but with advisory rather than determinative authority over smaller units. A yearly meeting may have a staff which pro­vides services to monthly and quarterly meetings, represents the yearly meeting to the general public, and carries on the projects initiated by the an­nual meeting.

Yearly Meeting Friends: Quakers known for involvement at the yearly meeting level.

 

====

Notes

Part I Chapter I

1. Rufus M. Jones, Mysticism and Democracy (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Har­vard University Press, 1932), _p. 56.

2. George Fox, The Journal of George Fox, ed. John L. Nickalls (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1952), _p. 56.

3. William C. Braithwaite, The Beginnings of Quakerism (London: Macmillan, 1912), _p. 426. Christopher Hill, The World Turned Upside Down (New York: Viking, 1973), _pp. 33-34, 163.

4. Fox, Journal, _p. 263.

5. Abram R. Barclay, Letters of Early Friends (London: Harvey and Darton, 1841), _pp. 310, 297. Burrough says he came to London nine years previous (1653) and that the Meeting was established two years later [Cf. William C. Braithwaite, Spiritual Guidance in Quaker Experience (London: Swarthmore Press, 1909) _p. 64]. Braithwaite claims the summer of 1656 for the establishment of the meeting in his The Beginnings of Quakerism _p. 320. Arnold Lloyd suggests 1652, but with no documentation in his Quaker Social History, (New York: Longmans, 1950).

6. Abram R. Barclay, Letters, _p. 298.

7. Ibid., _p. 305.

8. Ibid.

9. Quaker Strongholds (n.p., 1891), _pp. 11-13, cited in London Yearly Meeting, Christian Faith and Practice in the Experience of the Society of Friends (Richmond, In­diana: Friends United Press, 1973), par. 80.

10.Robert Barclay, Barclay's Apology in Modern English, ed. Dean Freiday (Philadelphia: Friends Book Store, 1967), proposition 2, sec. 7, _pp. 357, 355-356. In order to clarify Barclay's argument, we use Freiday's excellent edition whenever possible. Propositions and sections are indicated for the benefit of a reader using some other edition.

1.   Fox, Journal, p. 145; see also pp. 179, 218, 224, 225.

Rufus M. Jones, New Studies in Mystical Religion (New York: Macmillan, 1927), _p. 170. Rufus M. Jones, Quakerism, A Spiritual Movement (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, 1963), _p. 87.

Howard H. Brinton, Friends for 300 Years (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1952), _pp. ^xiii, _p. 63.

14. Quaker Fundamentals, _p. 6, quoted in Henry Van Etten, George Fox and the Quakers (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1959), _p. 164.

15. Robert Barclay, Apology, proposition 2, sec. 7, p. 356. Italics in original.

14.  Richard T. Vann, The Social Development of English Quakerism 1655-1755 (Cam­bridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1969) _pp. 112413. The words in the second set of quotation marks are taken from the minutes themselves.

London Yearly Meeting, Christian Life, Faith and Thought in the Society of Friends (London: Friends Book Centre, 1943). The quoted material from Besse's Sufferings (n.p. 1753), vol. 2, _pp. 201-202, was written in jail eight days prior to the execution.

17. Fox, Journal, _p. 27. Cf. Fox's similar responses to a court in 1652 on _p. 135.

18. Ibid., _p. 27.

19. Hill, The World Turned, _pp. 190-191, 47, 60, 163, 22.

20. London Yearly Meeting, Christian Life, _p. 15.

21. Hill, World Turned, _p. 200.

22. B. Nicholson, A Blast from the Lord (1653) quoted by J. F. Maclear, "Quakerism and the End of the Interregnum," Church History 19:245.

23. Francis Howgill, A Woe to Magistrates (1654) quoted by Hill, World Turned, p. 196.

24. James Nayler, Wisdom from Beneath (1653) quoted by Hill, World Turned, p. 196.

25. George Fox and James Nayler, Several Papers (1654), _p. 23; quoted by Hill, World Turned, _p. 199.

26. Abram R. Barclay, Letters of Early Friends (London: Harvey and Darton, 1841), _p. 311. Fox is writing in 1689. The term, "monthly meeting;' which refers to the special session for business held each month by local Quaker com­munities, may be loose usage here as the tradition of meeting monthly for business sessions may not have emerged in many districts before Fox's 1654 cam­paign. Van Etten, for example, flatly asserts, "There was no such thing as a form of organization among the children of the Light, Fox's first followers:' (Van Etten, George Fox, _pp. 77-78.) Robert Barclay, the historian, seems to claim that there were no such sessions prior to 1652 at Sedberg. (Robert Barclay, The Inner Life of the Religious Societies of the Commonwealth, 3rd ed. (London: Hodden and Stoughton, 1879), _p. 351.

27. Fox, Journal, _pp. 107-109, 22-23.

28. Swarthmore MSS, 3, 19, cited in Arnold Lloyd, Quaker Social History, (New York: Longmans, 1950), _p. 2. Boswell Middleton MS., _p. 26; cited in Lloyd, Quaker Social History, _p. 1.

29. Portfolio 36, _p. 19, cited in Lloyd, Quaker Social History, p. 2.

30. Vann, The Social Development, _p. 138. Abram R. Barclay, Letters, _p. 298. Cf. Van Etten, George Fox, _p. 77.

31. Fox, Journal, _p. 215.

32. Harold Loukes urges that such "settling" probably meant establishing monthly meetings. The Discovery of Quakerism (London: Harrop, 1960) _p. 63. Cf. Fox, Journal, _p. 174.

33. William Wistar Comfort, William Penn's Religious Background (Ambler, Penn­sylvania: Upper Dublin United Monthly Meeting, 1944), _p. 12.

34. G. M. Trevelyan, English Social History, _p. 267, cited by Taylor, Valiant Sixty, pp. 74-75.

35. Fox, Journal, _p. 280.

36. Ibid., _pp. 280-281.

37. Ibid., _pp. 281-285.

38. William C. Braithwaite, The Beginnings, pp. 338-339.

39. Abram R. Barclay, Letters, _p. 284. Cf. Lloyd, Quaker Social History, _p. 21.

40. Hill, World Turned, _p. 279.

41. John Audland, The Innocent Delivered Out of the Snare (n.p. 1658), _p. 33, cited in Hill, World Turned, _p. 196.

42. J. A. Atkinson, ed., Tracts Relating to the Civil War in Cheshire (1641-1659) (n.p.: Chetham Society, 1909), _p. 186, cited in Hill, World Turned, _p. 280. Cf. p. 199 and Cf. Hugh Barbour, The Quakers in Puritan England (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1964), _pp. 199-206.

43. A. L. Morton, The World of the Ranters (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1970), _pp.. 18-19.

44. Hill, World Turned, _pp. 203, 283.

45. Twenty-one Quakers died from persecution before April 1659; over three hundred died during the Restoration period. See Braithwaite, Beginnings, p. 465.

46. Fox, Journal, _p. 398. Braithwaite suggests the number 4,230 in The Second Period of Quakerism (London: Macmillan, 1919), _p. 9.

47. Fox, Journal, _p. 399.

48. Hill, World Turned, _p. 194.

49. Braithwaite, Second Period, _p. 13.

14.  Max Weber, From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, eds. H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (New York: Oxford University Press, 1958).

19. Fox, Journal, pp. 285n, 372, See Braithwaite, Beginnings, p. 338.

14.  Reliquiae Baxterianae, vol. 1, _pp. 436-437, cited in Hill, World Turned, _p. 168. Cf. Brinton, Friends, _p. 158.

21. Loukes treats the controversy as "quaint" in Discovery, _p. 63; Van Etten calls it "quite unimportant" in George Fox, p. 76; even Fox's principal contemporary defender admits to his own initial prejudice against Fox. Kenneth E. Carroll, John Perrot: Early Quaker Schismatic (London: Friends Historical Society, 1971), _p. vii. Braithwaite, Beginnings, p. 275.

22. Braithwaite, Second Period, p. 233.

23. Fox, Journal, p. 268.

24. Epistles and Advices of George Fox to Birmingham Friends (n.p. 1681), cited in Lloyd, Quaker Social History, pp. 178-179. See Braithwaite, Second Period, p 242.

25. John Bolton, Judas and His Treachery (London: n.p., 1670), pp. 1849, cited in Carroll, Perrot, _p. 61.

26. John Perrot, To All Simple, Honest-Intending and Innocent People (London: n.p., 1664), _p. 6, cited in Carroll, Perrot, _p. 78.

27. Carroll, Perrot, pp. 57-58, 55, 75, 60, 50. See Braithwaite, Second Period, _p. 237.

28. Braithwaite, Second Period, _p. 244.

29. Carroll, Perrot, _pp. 64, 65. See Braithwaite, Second Period, _p. 235.

30. George Fox, The Spirit of Envy, Lying, and Persecution Made Manifest (London: n.p., 1664), _p. 13, quoted in Carroll, Perrot, _p. 65.

31. Carroll, Perrot, _p. 77. See Braithwaite, Second Period, _p. 240.

Part I Chapter II

1.Abram R. Barclay, Letters, _p. 321. Carroll. Perrot, _pp. 82, 91. See Lloyd, Quaker Social History, _p. 24.

2.Braithwaite, Second Period, _p. 248.

3.Brinton, Friends, _p. 101.

4.Kenneth Carroll lists twenty-one of the leading supporters of Perrot in a catalog he describes as a "Quaker Who's Who:' See Carroll, Perrot, _pp. 87-89, 91.

5.Fox, Journal, _pp. 510-511, 505-507, 510. It would appear that, in some areas, custom had changed during the persecution to holding meeting for business only quarterly. See Brathwaite, Second Period, _p. 251.

6.Braithwaite, Second Period, _p. 276.

7.Fox, Journal, _p. 511. See Carroll, Perrot, _pp. 92-94.

8.Brinton, Friends, p. 101. See Vann, Social Development, p. 91.

1.    Fox, Journal, p. xlvii. Edited by John L. Nickalls (London Yearling Meeting).

Swarthmore Collection, vol. 5, p. 9, quoted in Braithmore, Second Period, p. 280.

Fox, Journal, _p. 20-21, 14.

Karl Rahner and Herbert Vorgrimler, Theological Dictionary (New York: Seabury Press, 1965), _p. 72.

4.Fox, Journal, _p. 35.

1.    Braithwaite, Beginnings, _p. 26.

6.William Allen, The Danger of Enthusiasm Discovered in an Epistle to the Quakers (London: Barbazon Aylmer, 1674), p. 12.

1.    Ibid, p. 96.

Van Etten, George Fox, _p. 14.

George Fox and Thomas Lawrence, Concerning Marriage (n.p., 1663), p. 10, cited in J. William Frost, The Quaker Family in Colonial America (New York: St. Mar­tin's Press, 1973), p. 20.

8.Braithwaite, Spiritual Guidance, _p. 51.

9.Hill, World Turned, _p. 225. He went through the streets crying, "Woe unto the bloody Lichfield." See Fox, Journal, _p. 71.

10. Braithwaite, Spiritual Guidance, _pp. 40-41, 55.

11. For discussions of the dilemma, consult Braithwaite, Second Period, _p. 250 and Braithwaite, Beginnings, p. 109.

23 Braithwaite, Beginnings, _p. 147.

24. Abram R. Barclay, Letters, _pp. 358, 355-356.

25. Barbour, Quakers in Puritan England, _p. 119.

26. Braithwaite, Spiritual Guidance, _p. 57.

24.  Braithwaite, Beginnings, p. 150. See Roland H. Bainton, The Travail of Religious Liberty (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1951), _p. 128.

Vernon Noble, The Man in Leather Breeches (New York: Philosophical Library, 1953), p. 79.

Braithwaite, Second Period, _p. 339. Christopher Hill, a non-Quaker student of the period, reassures us that, when Quakers "went naked for a sign;' they wore "only a loincloth about their middles for decency:' Unfortunately, Hill does not document his assertion. See Hill, World Turned, p. 256.

Bainton, Travail, p. 128.

For examples, the reader might well skim I Corinthians and II Corinthians.

Frost, Quaker Family, p. 24; see Genesis. 6:1-4, 24:4, 26:35.

Ibid, p. 34, 40, 33.

27. Gospel-Truth, _pp. 131, 138, quoted in Hill, World Turned, _pp. 212-213.

24.  Robert Barclay, Apology, proposition 3, sec. 7, p. 62. Italics in original.

Carroll, Perrot, _p. 85. See Frost. Quaker Family, p. 25.

ARBARC./73, Warmsworth, Oct. 13, 1659, cited in Barbour, Quakers in Puritan England, _p. 120.

Robert Barclay, The Anarchy of the Ranters (Philadelphia: Joseph Crukshank, 1770), p. 72. Brinton, Friends, _p. 49. Galatians, 5:22. Abram R. Barclay, Letters, pp. 336, 341, 403-404. Henry Cadbury, George Fox's Book of Miracles (Cambridge: Cam­bridge University Press, 1912), _pp. 112414.

Robert Barclay, Apology, proposition 2, sec. 12, p. 370, sec. 10, p. 366. Italics.

Fox, Journal, p. xliii.

Frost, Quaker Family, _p. 13. For Braithwaite's confirming judgment, see Spiritual Guidance, p. 52.

Jacques Guillet et al., Discernment of Spirits (Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 1970).

Ignatius Loyola, The Spiritual Exercises, trans. Louis J. Puhl, S. J.

(Westminster, Maryland: Newman Press, 1951), nos. 176, 313-336, 170.

44. John Carroll Futrell, Making an Apostolic Community of Love (St. Louis, Missouri: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1970), _PP. 193494.

45. Braithwaite, Spiritual Guidance, _p. 66; See Van Etten, George Fox, p. 77.

44.  The Spirit of the Hat (n.p., 1673), cited in Braithwaite, Second Period, _pp. 292, 293.

47. Braithwaite, Second Period, _pp. 294, 297-298.

48. "Meetings for Discipline" in MS "Books of Extracts;' quoted in Ibid., _p. 348.

44.  Yearly Meeting Printed Epistles, vol. 1 (1681-1769), pp. li-lvi, printed in Ibid.,

p. 309.

49. MS "Christian and Brotherly Advices;' _p. 105, cited in Lloyd, Quaker Social History, p. 28.

50. MS. "Minutes of the Yearly Meeting;' vol. 1, _p. 66, quoted in Lloyd, Quaker Social History, p. 28.

51. Works, _p. 238, cited in Braithwaite, Second Period, p. 340.

52. Lloyd, Quaker Social History, pp. 26, 27.

53. Robert Barclay, Anarchy, pp. 84-89, 98, 102, 105, 109.

54. Allen, Danger, p. 91.

55. Robert Barclay, Anarchy, p. 91, 24-25.

56. Ibid. _pp. 58-64, 21, 65-68, 74.

44.  Thomas Crisp, The First Part of Babel's Builders Unmasking Themselves (1682), cited in Braithwaite, Second Period, p. 349.

51. Yearly Meeting Minutes, 17.iii.1695 and George Keith, The Plea of the Innocent (n.p., 1692); both cited in Lloyd, Quaker Social History, _p. 137.

52. Braithwaite, Second Period, pp. xxxi, 386.

53. Ibid, _p. xli. Jones divides the blame somewhat: Continental Quietism later reinforces the damage Barclay does. See Jones, Spiritual Movement, _p. 156.

54. Braithwaite, Second Period, p. xxxvi, xlv, xxxv.

55. Braithwaite, Second Period, p. xliv. See Jones, Spiritual Movement, _pp. 158-159.

44.  Lloyd, Quaker Social History, _p. 123.

53. Robert Barclay, Apology, proposition 4, sec. 4, _p. 94; proposition 6, sec. 24,

p. 176 and proposition 5, sec. 21, _p. 162; proposition 11, _pp. 348-409 passim.

54. Abram R. Barclay, Letters, _p. 219.

55. Fox and Lawrence, Concerning Marriage, _p. 12, cited in Frost, Quaker Family

p. 14.

55. Braithwaite, Second Period, _p. 383.

56. Fox, Journal, _p. 27. See Braithwaite, Spiritual Guidance, _p. 35.

57. Dean Freiday, "Not a Steeple, a Steeple, a Steeple," Friends' Quarterly, 18 (October 1974): 380-381.

58. Lloyd, Quaker Social History, p. 123.

59. Minutes of Yearly Meeting, vol. 1, 4th, 4th mo., 1675, cited in N.C. Hunt, Two Early Political Associations (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961), _p. 3.

60. Minutes of Meeting for Sufferings, vol. 1, 18th, 8th mo., 1675, cited in Ibid., p. 3.

61. Ibid., _p. 26, Cf. _pp. 4, 7-10, 12, 15.

62. Ibid., chaps. 3-6.

63. Matthew 5:34. Minutes of Meeting for Sufferings, vol. 10, 12th, 12th mo., 1695/6, cited in Ibid, _p. 50.

64. Minutes of Meeting for Sufferings, vol. 21, 4th, 3rd mo., 1715, cited in Ibid., p. 52.

65. Ibid., _p. 53.

66. Minutes of Meeting for Sufferings, vol. 26, 17th, 1st mo., 1735/6, cited in Ibid., _p. 90.

67. Braithwaite, Second Period, _p. 516.

68. Ibid.

69. Paul R. Lawrence and Jay W. Lorsch, Organization and Environment (Boston: Harvard University Press, 1967), _p. 209. See _p. 185.

70. Ibid., _pp. 192-193.

71. Ibid., _p. 194.

72. For the early history of Quakerism in the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting area, the reader might consult Friends in the Delaware Valley, ed. John M. Moore (Haver-ford, Pennsylvania: Friends Historical Association, 1981).

Part II Chapter I

1.London Yearly Meeting, Christian Faith and Practice in the Experience of the Society of Friends (Richmond, Indiana: Friends United Press, 1973), frontispiece. Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, Faith and Practice (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, 1972), frontispiece.

2.Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, Faith and Practice, 1972, _pp. 17-18.

3.London Yearly Meeting, Christian Faith and Practice, 1960, par. 353.

4.James F. Walker, "The Quaker Meeting for Business;' Pendle Hill Bulletin 190 (April 1967):1-3. Cf. London Yearly Meeting, Church Government (London: Friends Book Centre, 1968), par. 716.

5.Thomas S. Brown, When Friends Attend to Business (Philadelphia: Philadel­phia Yearly Meeting, n.d.), unpaginated. Cf. Douglas V. Steere, "The Quaker Decisionmaking Process;' paper presented to Guilford College faculty, 12 February, 1975.

6.Steere, "Quaker Decisionmaking Process;' _p. 3. Cf. London Yearly Meeting, Church Government, par. 715.

7.D. Elton Trueblood, "The Quaker Method of Reaching Decisions;' in Beyond Dilemmas, ed. S. B. Laughlin (New York: Lippincott, 1937), pp. 122-123.

8.Burton R. Clark, The Distinctive College: Antioch, Reed, and Swarthmore (Chicago, Aldine, 1970), p. 214.

7.   Stuart Chase, Roads to Agreement (New York: Harper, 1951) _pp. 51-52.

Part II Chapter II

1.Trueblood, "Quaker Method;' _p. 123.

2.Chase, Roads, _p. 49. See London Yearly Meeting, Church Government, par.

720₁.

1.   Margaret H. Bacon, The Quiet Rebels (New York: Basic Books, 1969), _p. 174.

Glenn Bartoo, "Quaker Decisions;' (Masters Dissertation, University of Chicago, 1952), _p. 101.

To protect confidentiality, all quotations from interviews will appear in quotation marks, but without attribution.

3.Clark, Distinctive College, p. 173.

1.   Representative Meeting, 24th, 4th mo. 1975.

Francis Pollard, Beatrice Pollard, and Robert Pollard, Democracy and the Quaker Method (London: Bannisdale Press, 1949), _p. 62.

Brown, When Friends, unpaginated.

Walker, "Quaker Meeting for Business;' unpaginated.

London Yearly Meeting, Christian Faith and Practice, par. 353.

5.Howard Haines Brinton, Reaching Decisions: The Quaker Method (Wall­ingford, Pa.: Pendle Hill, n.d.), _p. 17.

1.   Representative Meeting, 27th, 2nd mo., 1975.

Howard H. Brinton, Creative Worship (Wallingford, Pa.: Pendle Hill, 1963), pp. 93-94. Cf. Pollard, Democracy, p. 52. For remnants of that earlier atmosphere, see Bacon, Quiet Rebels, _pp. 203-205.

Part II Chapter III

1.Cf. Bartoo, "Quaker Decisions;' _pp. 113, 114.

2.AR Barc.173, Warmsworth, October 13, 1659, cited in Barbour, Quakers in Puritan England, _p. 120. See I. Milton Yinger, The Scientific Study of Religion (New York: Macmillan, 1970), p. 104.

3.Abram R. Barclay, Letters, _p. 305. Much earlier, Nicholas of Cusa had singled out that the Holy Spirit, "who is the spirit of union and concord" led church councils to agreement without dissent. De Concordantia Catholica, 2.15.170. Cf. Paul F. Sigmund, Nicholas of Cusa and Medieval Political Thought (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1963), _p. 227.

4.Oxford English Dictionary, 1971, ed., s.v., "concordance." Steere, "Quaker Decisionmaking;' _p. 4.

5.Bartoo, "Quaker Decisions;' _p. 67.

6.G. Von Schulze Gaevernitz, Democracy and Religion (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1930), _p. 24.

7.A phenomenon common in groups which operate by voting seems to apply here as well, but with somewhat less significance. The individual who withdraws his objection or merely remains silent on a proposal he is known to oppose can expect that those now on the dominant side will do the same in his favor some day when they are in the minority on an issue. They owe him a debt for his cooperation. Thus, the individual who is weighing his leverage over the group might accede to the majority on a series of minor issues in order to build up enough debts to force the group to go in his direction on some matter of great importance to him.

Our observations lead us to conclude that such conduct goes on informally in matters of little moment: I agree to your committee's proposal for a picnic and I expect you to endorse my committee's proposal that the monthly meeting join the local ministerial alliance.

Major issues are another matter. Here Friends report that such a procedure-clearly opposed to the principle of selflessly seeking the Truth in the alternatives offered the group-would be most inappropriate. The decisions this writer has observed over many sessions of the same meetings, e.g., Represen­tative Meeting from October 1974 to May 1975, give no reason to believe that such behavior is at all common.

1.   Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, Sessions Six and Seven, 28th, 3rd mo., 1975.

After his personal observations of Friends came to an end, the writer was informed that the incident's outcomes were more significant than had appeared at first. At the subsequent meeting to decide on allotment of the budget quota among the monthly meetings, the objectors from the dissatisfied meeting con­tinued their fight. Eventually, the "slighted" meeting refused to pay its share of the Yearly Meeting budget. One ought not think that the clerk's speed caused this major conflict within the community. Rather, the clerk's action merely of‑

fered the occasion for transition from an ongoing but informal conflict of philosophy to a public dispute. The sense of "failure of due process" seems to

have contributed to the unhappy meeting's feeling of justification in refusing to accept the decision of the subsequent meeting called to distribute shares of the financial burden according to each meeting's ability to pay.

1.   The passage of time often mellows memories and invites wit. One of the participants commented years later that it is amazing how "the topic of cohabita­tion can make estranged bedfellows of a body of Quakers."

Cf. Howard H. Brinton, Guide to Quaker Practice (Wallingford, Pa.: Pendle Hill, 1946), _pp. 37-38.

Brinton, Creative Worship, p. 91.

Part II Chapter IV

1.Cp. Karl Rahner and Herbert Vorgrimler, Theological Dictionary (New York: Seabury, 1973), _P. 303.

2.Henry Nash Smith, Virgin Land (New York: Vintage, 1950), p. v. 3 Rahner and Vorgrimler, Theological Dictionary, p 303

3.Stanley Ellin, "An Open Letter to All Friends;' Friends Journal (January 1, 1976), _p. 10. Cf. Henry I. Cadbury, The Character of a Quaker (Wallingford, Pa.: Pen-die Hill, 1959), _p. 24.

4.Bartoo, "Quaker Decisions;' _p. 62.

5.Blanche W. Shaffer, ed., No Time But This Present (Birmingham: Friends World Committee for Consultation, 1965), _pp. 88-89.

6.L. Hugh Doncaster, The Quaker Message; A Personal Affirmation (Wallingford, Pa.: Pendle Hill, 1972), _p. 5.

4.   See the case of the Jewish Quaker in Bacon, Quiet Rebels, _p. 207.

Shaffer, No Time, _p. 48.

Ellin, "An Open Letter," _p. 10.

7.Kathleen M. Slack, Constancy and Change in the Society of Friends (London: Friends Home Service Committee, 1967), _pp. 43-44.

4.   Howard E. Collier, The Quaker Meeting (Wallingford, Pa.: Pendle Hill, 1944), pp. 43-44.

Shaffer, No Time, _p. 83.

Bartoo, "Quaker Decisions;' _p. 63. Italics in original.

Many allude to the Pollards' book as "worth reading along this line:' See Pollard, Democracy, pp. 148-149 and 152-154.

9.Slack, Constancy and Change, p. 45.

4.   Whether this Friend is right in discerning a shift to "explicit faith" is unclear.

Certainly the Christocentric approach is generally respected among today's

Friends if one uses the prominence of Christocentric Quakers in Philadelphia

Yearly Meeting committees as a yardstick. This researcher was struck, however, by the number of universalist Friends who revealed little appreciation of recent developments in biblical research and therefore were unaware of the "passe" character of the science versus the Bible dispute. To such Friends, all Christocen-trics tend to be lumped as benighted fundamentalists.

4.   Rufus M. Jones, Later Periods of Quakerism, 2 vols. (London: Macmillan, 1921), 1:445.

Trueblood, "Quaker Method;' _p. 115.

Brinton, Guide, _p. 41.

Thomas F. O'Dea, The Mormons (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957)

p. 86.

4.   Philadelphia Friends use "thee" for nominative as well as accusative case.

13.Trueblood, "Quaker Method;' _p. 107. Rufus M. Jones, Mysticism and

142

Democracy (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1932), _p. 32. James D. Wilson, "Quakerism and the Democratic Process;' Quaker Life, May, 1973, _p. 27.

14. The speaker distinguished lower-level groups where the majority of par­ticipants are often not Quakers from higher more flexible units like the Board of Directors, all of whose members are by statute Friends. This observer noted a similar flexibility among monthly meetings and Philadelphia Yearly Meeting committees; in most cases a turn to silent reflection or a "delay until everybody's comfortable" produced a tempering of individual priorities even among those Friends most heavily committed to their own special interest.

15. Brown, When Friends, unpaginated.

16. Trueblood, "Quaker Method;' _p. 113.

17. Atypical but interesting was the gentleman of mature years who sat next to this observer during a session of 1975 Yearly Meeting. At the clerk's call for silent reflection, my neighbor picked up the Philadelphia Bulletin and read the comic strips until the day's business began.

18. Princeton Monthly Meeting, Meeting for Business, 4th, 5th mo., 1975.

19. Pollard, Democracy, _p. 127.

20. Lewis Carroll, The Annotated Alice, ed. Martin Gardner (New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1960), _p. 269.

21. For example, Ellin, "Open Letter:' An attempt to reconcile the two groups is T. Canby Jones, ed., Quaker Understanding of Christ and of Authority (Philadelphia: Friends World Committee for Consultation, 1974).

22. Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, Session 1, 21st, 3rd mo., 1975.

23. For example, Elias Hicks, Journal of the Life and Religious Labours of Elias Hicks (New York: Isaac T. Hooper, 1832).

Part II Chapter V

1.Steere, "Quaker Decisionmaking," _p. 4. The reader should note Steere's use of "he or she." Women frequently serve as clerks and are often noted for the sensitivity with which they carry out the task.

2.The clerk of Yearly Meeting and clerk of Representative Meeting prepare agenda with their Planning Committee and Executive Committee respectively. In monthly meeting, the clerk consults the overseers, sometimes in only an in­formal manner. In less regular meetings, consultation is less likely.

3.London Yearly Meeting, Church Government, par. 726.

4.Bartoo, "Quaker Decisions," p. 35.

1.    Brinton, Guide, p. 37.

Brinton, Guide, p. 37.

London Yearly Meeting, Church Government, par. 726.

Princeton Monthly Meeting, Meeting for Business, 2nd, 2nd mo., 1975.

143

9.Douglas M. McGregor, "The Human Side of Enterprise" in Organizational Behavior and Management, eds, Donald E. Porter and Philip B. Applewhite. (Scranton: International Textbook Company, 1964), pp. 453 and 454.

10. Ibid., pp. 455, 459-460.

11. London Yearly Meeting, Church Government, par. 721. Cf. Robert K. Greenleaf, Servant Leadership (Ramsey, New Jersey: Paulist Press, 1977).

12. I Cor. 12-14 and Rahner and Vorgrimler, Theological Dictionary, _p. 72.

13. Minutes of Representative Meeting for 22nd, 10th mo., 1970: Minute 11.

14. Minutes of Representative Meeting for 3rd, 12th mo., 1970 and Interview.

15. Friends who explicitly accept either a Christological or a universalist understanding of the special quality of the gathered meeting have no difficulty verbalizing their religious acceptance of a decision made under the cir­cumstances we describe here. Others whose membership in Friends does not seem to include the experiential quality of Friends worship are sometimes hard-pressed to deal with the sort of event we are discussing. Said one, "I don't go in much for that stuff; but you sure have to admit something odd is happening."

Conclusion

1. "Report of Representative Meeting to Clerks of Monthly Meetings," 3rd, 2nd mo., 1977.

2. Proceedings of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, 1981 (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, 1981). [The decline continued, even accelerating slightly, from 1980 to 1994. (1994-1995 Yearbook Philadelphia: Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, 1994, p. 28.)

3. Calvin Wall Redekop, The Old Colony Mennonites: Dilemmas of Ethnic Minority Lift (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1969).

1. Richard A. Falk, Future Worlds (New York: Foreign Policy Association, 1976),

p. 7. For a sketch of how the national viewpoints would have to be changed, see pp. 47-54.

1. Warren C. Bennis and Philip E. Slater, The Temporary Society (New York: Harper and Row, 1968).

Roberto Mangabeira Unger, Knowledge and Politics (New York: Free Press, 1975), p. 19.

Ibid., pp. 15, 21-24.

Alfred North Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas (New York: Free Press, 1933),

p. 171.

Appendix A

1. Acts 15:25, 28 (King James).

2.Robert Barclay, Anarchy, p. 21.

1. Joseph A. McCallin, "The Development of a Legal Theory of Majority Rule in Elections;' Saint Louis University Law Journal 16 (Fall 1971): 1-10.

144

4.Paul F. Sigmund, Nicholas of Cusa, p. 146.

5.Gaines Post, Studies in Medieval Legal Thought (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1964), chap. 4.

6.Lectura ad III. 7. 15 fol. 414b; cited in Brian Tierney, Foundations of the Conciliar Theory (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Cambridge University Press, 1955), p. 116.

7.For practical English applications of this principle, see Kathleen Edwards, The English Secular Cathedrals in the Middle Ages (Manchester: n.p., 1949), pp. 97-135, cited in Tierney, Conciliar Theory, p. 112.

8.Tierney, Conciliar Theory, pp. 220-237.

9.De Concordantia Catholica, 1.8.63: "Quare corpus sacerdotale, licet caducum et mortale at deviabile in memberis, non tamen in toto, quando semper major pars in fide et lege Christi permaneat ......cited in Sigmund, Nicholas, p. 146.

10.De Concordantia Catholica, 2.15.170, cited in Sigmund, Nicholas, p. 147.

11.Sigmund, Nicholas, pp. 224, 228.

12.De Concordantia Catholica, 2.10.138, cited in Ibid:, p. 227.

13."Qui enim sibi dissentiunt, non agunt concilium' De Concordantia, Catholica, 2.1.93, cited in Sigmund, Nicholas, p. 145.

14.Christopher St. German, The Power of the Clergy, ch. 6, cited by Franklin Le Van Baumer, "Christopher St. German;' American Historical Review 62 (1936/7):646, noted in George Huntston Williams, "The Religious Background of the Idea of a Loyal Opposition" in Voluntary Associations, ed. D. B. Robertson (Richmond, Va.: John Knox Press, 1966), p. 62.

15.Williams, "Loyal Opposition;' p. 62. Italics in original.

16.George Huntston Williams, The Radical Reformation (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1962), p. xxvii.

17.Williams notes that a similar theory evolved among magisterial reformers who sometimes sought "parliamentary quasi-conciliar enactment of the royal headship of a national church." Ibid., p. 235.

18.Ibid., _p. 176, Cf. _pp. 48-49, 77, 78.

19.Ibid., _pp. 223, 829.

20.Cadbury, Book of Miracles, pp. x-xi. For Boehme, see Jones, Mysticism and Democracy, p. 140.

21.Braithwaite, Beginnings, pp. xxv-xxvi.

22.Vernon Noble, The Man in Leather Breeches (New York: Philosophical Library, 1953). _p. 45. See Jones, Mysticism and Democracy, pp. 137-138.

23.Braithwaite, Beginnings, p. 24. Williams, Radical Reformation, pp. 789, 778, 790n. Fox, Journal, pp. 30-44.

24.Lloyd, Quaker Social History, pp. 24, 1. Jones, Mysticism and Democracy, pp. 56, 70-71. Robert Barclay, Inner Life, p. 175. Ephraim Pagitt, Heresiography, Sixth ed. (London: William Lee, 1662),pp. 101, 233. Cf. added page facing title page. Pagitt inserts Quakers immediately after Seekers, evidently because the two are so closely allied. See also Rufus M. Jones, Studies in Mystical Religion (London: Mac­millan, 1909), _p. 456.

145

25. Robert Barclay, Inner Life, p. 173. Braithwaite, Beginnings, p. 45.

26. Braithwaite, Beginnings, _PP. 44-45. Robert Barclay, Inner Life, _pp. 273, 255, 175. Fox, Journal, _pp. 30-46. Jones, Mysticism and Democracy, pp. 72-73, 75.

27. Braithwaite, Beginnings, _p. 12.

28. Pagitt, Heresiography, _p. 244.

29. Robert Barclay, Inner Life, _pp. 248-249. Fox, Journal, _pp. 9, 19-20. Jones, Mystical Religion, _pp. 411, 414.

30. John Smyth, Works, ed. W. T. Whitley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1915), _pp. 275, 277, 271, 269. Williams, Radical Reformation, _p. 777. William I. Hull, The Rise of Quakerism in Amsterdam (Swarthmore, Pennsylvania: Swarth­more Monograph Series, 1938), _pp. 12, 3.

31. Abram R. Barclay, Letters, _p. 285. See also Fox's Letter of 1656 to Friends cited in Fox, Journal, _p. 282.

32. Smyth, _pp. 759, 743-744, 749. Robert Barclay, Inner Life, _p. 117. Williams, Radical Reformation, _P. 788.

33. Cf. Williams, Radical Reformation, p. 790.

34. "May not the spirit of Christ speak in the female as well as in the male?" George Fox, Gospel-Truth (n.p., 1656), _p. 81, cited in Hill, World Turned, _p. 251.

35. Robert Barclay, Inner Life, _p. 156.

36. John Smyth, Works, pp. lxxix-lc; lxxxvii-lxxxix. John Aron Toews, Sebastian Franck: Friend and Critic of Early Anabaptism: (Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Minnesota, 1964), _p. 184.

37. Lloyd, Quaker Social History, pp. 2-3. Robert Barclay, Inner Life, _p. 353.

38. Robert Barclay, Inner Life, _p. 116. This passage is apparently excerpted from a letter from Hugh Bromhead to William Hamerton of London. Harleian MS 360 fol.

39. Agnes L. Tierney, Ten Studies in the History and Teaching of the Society of Friends (Richmond, Indiana: Friends Book and Supply House, 1922), _p. 13. Braithwaite, Beginnings, p. xxv.

25.  Jones, Mysticism and Democracy, _pp. 40-41. Fox, Journal, e.g., pp. 10-18.

A. S. P. Woodhouse, ed., Puritanism and Liberty (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951) _pp. 105, 104, 95, 23, 17-19. Bracketed words supplied by Woodhouse.

Bibliography

Early Quakerism

Allen, William. The Danger of Enthusiasm Discovered in an Epistle to the Quakers. London: Barbazon Aylmer, 1674.

______  A Discourse of Divine Assistance and the Method Thereof. London:

Walter Kettelby, 1693.

______  A Persuasive to Peace & Unity Among Christians. London: B. Aylmer,

1672.

Bainton, Roland H. The Travail of Religious Liberty. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1951.

Barbour, Hugh. The Quakers in Puritan England. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1964.

Barclay, Abram R. Letters of Early Friends. London: Harvey and Darton, 1841. Barclay, Robert. The Anarchy of the Ranters. Philadelphia: Joseph Crukshank, 1770.

______  Barclay's Apology in Modern English. Edited by Dean Freiday.

Philadelphia: Friends Book Store, 1967

______  Baptism and the Lord's Supper Substantially Asserted. London: T Sowle,

1696.

______  The Inner Life of the Religious Societies of the Commonwealth. 3rd ed.

London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1879.

Benson, Lewis. Catholic Quakerism. Cloucester, U.K.: Derrick P. Faux, 1966. Braithwaite, William C. The Beginnings of Quakerism. London: Macmillan, 1912.

______  The Second Period of Quakerism. London: Macmillan, 1919.

______  Spiritual Guidance in Quaker Experience. London: Swarthmore Press,

1909.

Brinton, Howard. Friends for 300 Years. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1952.

______  The Religious Philosophy of Quakerism. Wallingford, Pennsylvania:

Pendle Hill Publications, 1973.

Burrage, Champlin. The Early English Dissenters. 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1912.

Cadbury, Henry J. ed. George Fox's Book of Miracles. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1948.

Carroll, Kenneth F. John Perrot: Early Quaker Schismatic. London: Friends Historical Society, 1971.

Comfort, William Wistar. William Penn's Religious Background. Ambler, Penn­sylvania: Upper Dublin United Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, 1944.

Edwards, Thomas. Gangraena. London: Ralph Smith, 1646.

Ferris, Benjamin. "A Sketch of the Proceedings by Benjamin Ferris:' Delaware History, April 1968, _pp. 30-42.

Flood, James. A Catholic Critique of the Quaker Doctrine of the Inner Light. Rome: Gregorian University Press, 1963.

Fox, George. The Journal of George Fox. Edited by John L. Nickalls. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1952.

Frost, J. William. The Quaker Family in Colonial America. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1973.

Graham, John William. Psychical Experiences of Quaker Ministers. London: Friends Historical Society, 1933.

Greenwood, John. Writings of John Greenwood (1587-1590). Edited by Leland H. Carlson. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1962.

Guillet, Jacques, et al. Discernment of Spirits. Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 1970.

Hill, Christopher. The World Turned Upside Down. New York: Viking, 1973.

Hull, William I. The Rise of Quakerism in Amsterdam. Swarthmore, Pennsylvania: Swarthmore Monograph Series, 1938.

Hunt, N. C. Two Early Political Associations. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961. Jones, Rufus M. Later Periods of Quakerism. 2 vols. London: Macmillan, 1921.

_______  Mysticism and Democracy. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard

University Press, 1932.

_______  New Studies in Mystical Religion. New York: Macmillan, 1927.

_______  Quakerism, A Spiritual Movement. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Yearly

Meeting of Friends, 1963.

_______  Some Exponents of Mystical Religion. New York: Abingdon, 1930.

_______  Spirit in Man. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1941.

_______  Studies in Mystical Religion. London: Macmillan, 1909.

Kirby, Ethyn Williams. George Keith. New York: Appleton-Century, 1942.

Lawrence, Paul R., and Lorsch, Jay W. Organization and Environment. Boston: Harvard University Press, 1967.

Littell, Franklin Hamlin. The Anabaptist View of the Church. Boston: Starr King Press, 1958.

Lloyd, Arnold. Quaker Social History. New York: Longmans, 1950.

148

Loukes, Harold. The Discovery of Quakerism. London: Harrop, 1960.

A Loving & Friendly Invitation TO ALL SINNERS TO REPENT AND A WARNING to all backsliders to return unto the Lord, while they have time and space given them, with a brief account of the latter part of the life of John Perrot and his end, &c. Lon­don: John Bringhurst, 1683.

Loyola, Ignatius. The Spiritual Exercises. Translated by Louis J. Puhi, S.J. Westminster, Maryland: Newman Press, 1951.

McCallin, Joseph A. "The Development of a Legal Theory of Majority Rule in Elections." Saint Louis University Law Journal 16 (Fall 1971):1.

Morton, A. L. The World of the Ranters. London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1970.

Noble, Vernon. The Man in Leather Breeches. New York: Philosophical Library, 1953.

Pagitt, Ephraim. Heresiography. 6th ed. London: William Lee, 1662.

Post, Gaines. Studies in Medieval Legal Thought. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964.

Rahner, Karl. The Dynamic Element in the Church. Montreal: Palm Publishers, 1964.

Sewel, Willem. The History of the Rise, Increase, and Progress of the Christian People Called Quakers. 3rd ed. Burlington, New Jersey: Isaac Collins, 1774.

Sigmund, Paul E. Nicholas of Cusa and Medieval Political Thought. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1963.

Smyth, John. Works. Edited by W. T. Whitley. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1915.

Taylor, Ernest E. The Valiant Sixty. London: Bannisdale Press, 1947.

Tierney, Agnes L. Ten Studies in the History and Teaching of the Society of Friends. Richmond, Indiana: Friends Book and Supply House, 1922.

Tierney, Brian. The Crisis of Church & State, 1050-1300. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1964.

 Foundations of the Conciliar Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 1955.

Toews, John Aron. "Sebastian Franck: Friend and Critic of Early Anabaptism." Ph.D. dissertation, University of Minnesota, 1964.

Tolles, Frederick B. The Atlantic Community of the Early Friends. London: Friends' Historical Society, 1952.

Troeltsch, Ernst. The Social Teachings of the Christian Churches. New York: Harper & Row, 1960.

Ullmann, Walter. Medieval Papalism. London: Methuen, 1949.

Van Etten, Henry. George Fox and the Quakers. New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1959.

149

Vann, Richard T The Social Development of English Quakerism, 1655-1755. Cam­bridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1969.

Weber, Max. From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. Edited by H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills. New York: Oxford University Press, 1958.

Williams, George Huntston. The Radical Reformation. Philadelphia.: Westminster, 1962.

_______  "The Religious Background of the Idea of a Loyal Opposition." In

Voluntary Associations, pp. 55-71. Edited by D. B. Robertson. Richmond, Virginia: John Knox Press, 1966.

Contemporary Quakerism

Bacon, Margaret H. The Quiet Rebels. New York: Basic Books, 1969.

Bartoo, Glenn. "Quaker Decisions:' A. M. thesis, University of Chicago, 1952.

Bennis, Warren G., and Slater, Philip E. The Temporary Society. New York: Harper Colophon, 1968.

Brinton, Howard H. Creative Worship. Wallingford, Pennsylvania: Pendle Hill, 1963.

1946.___ Guide to Quaker Practice. Wallingford, Pennsylvania: Pendle Hill,

_______  Reaching Decisions: The Quaker Method. Wallingford, Pennsylvania:

Pendle Hill, n.d.

Brown, A. Barratt. Democratic Leadership. London: Allen & Unwin, 1938.

Brown, Thomas S. When Friends Attend to Business. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, n.d.

Buchanan, James M. and Tullock, Gordon. The Calculus of Consent: Logical Founda­tions of Constitutional Democracy. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1962.

Cadbury, Henry J. The Character of a Quaker. Wallingford, Pennsylvania: Pendle Hill, 1959.

Carroll, Lewis. The Annotated Alice. Edited by Martin Gardner. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1960.

Chase, Stuart. Roads to Agreement. New York: Harper, 1951.

Clark, Burton R. The Distinctive College: Antioch, Reed, and Swarthmore. Chicago: Aldine, 1970.

Collier, Howard E. The Quaker Meeting. Wallingford, Pennsylvania: Pendle Hill, 1944.

Dexter, Lewis Anthony. Elite and Specialized Interviewing. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1970.

Drake, Matthew C. "Quaker Consensus: Helping Learners Understand and Par­ticipate in the Quaker Way of Reaching Group Decisions:' Ph.D. dissertation, Ohio State University, 1973.

Drucker, Peter F. "A Key to American Politics: Calhoun's Pluralism:' The Review of Politics. 10 (October 1948):412-426.

Eckstein, Harry. "Case Study and Theory in Political Science:' In Handbook of Political Science, 7:79-137. Edited by Fred I. Greenstein and Nelson W. Polsby. Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley, 1975.

Eckstein, Harry and Gurr, Ted Robert. Patterns of Authority: A Structural Basis for Political Inquiry. New York: Wiley-Interscience, 1975.

Ellin, Stanley. "An Open Letter to All Friends:' Friends Journal, January 1, 1976, pp. 10-11.

Falk, Richard A. Future Worlds. New York: Foreign Policy Association, 1976.

Futrell, John Carroll. Making an Apostolic Community of Love. St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1970.

Goidhamer, Herbert. "Public Opinion and Personality:' American Journal of Sociology, 55 (1950):346-354.

Hare, A. Paul. "Group Decision by Consensus: Reaching Unity in the Society of Friends:' Sociological Inquiry, 63 (January 1973):75-84.

Harrison, Paul M. Authority & Power in the Free Church Tradition: A Social Case Study of the American Baptist Convention. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1959.

Hicks, Elias. Journal of the Life and Religious Labours of Elias Hicks. New York: Isaac I. Hooper, 1832.

Jonas, Gerald. On Doing Good: The Quaker Experiment. New York: Scribner's, 1971.

Jones, Rufus M. "The Sense of the Meeting:' In The Quaker Reader, _pp. 411-415. Edited by Jessamyn West. New York: Viking, 1962.

Keals, John. "There is Something Called Quaker Power. New York Times Magazine, March 24, 1968, _pp. 56ff.

London Yearly Meeting. Christian Faith and Practice. Richmond, Indiana: Friends United Press, 1973.

______  Christian Life Faith and Thought in the Society of Friends. London:

Friends' Book Centre, 1943.

______  Church Government. London: Friends' Book Centre, 1968.

McCandless, John H. Quaker Understanding of Christ. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, 1975.

McGregor, Douglas M. "The Human Side of Enterprise:' In Organizational Behavior and Management, pp. 452-463. Edited by Donald E. Porter and Philip B. Applewhite. Scranton: International Textbook Co., 1964.

Marshall, Gertrude P. "A View of Representative Meeting: 19524975:' Friends Jour­nal, April 1, 1975, _pp. 198-200.

O'Dea, Thomas F. The Mormons. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957

Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (Race Street). The Book of Discipline. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, 1943.

______  Faith and Practice. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, 1972.

______  Proceedings and Yearbook of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, 1976. Phila‑

delphia: Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, 1976.

Pickett, Clarence E. For More Than Bread: An Autobiographical Account of Twenty-two Years Work with the American Friends Service Committee. Boston: Little, Brown, 1953.

Pollard, Francis, Beatrice, and Robert. Democracy and the Quaker Method. London: Bannisdale Press, 1949.

Rahner, Karl and Vorgrimler, Herbert. Theological Dictionary. New York: Seabury Press, 1965.

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. The Social Contract. Translated by Maurice Cranston. Baltimore: Penguin, 1970.

Rowntree, Joshua S. The Quaker Method of Church Government. London: Friends Book Centre, 1936.

Shaffer, Blanche W., ed. No Time But This Present. Birmingham: Friends World Committee for Consultation, 1965.

Slack, Kathleen M. Constancy and Change in the Society of Friends. London: Friends Home Service Committee, 1967

Smith, Henry Nash. Virgin Land. New York: Vintage, 1950.

Steere, Douglas V. On Speaking Out of the Silence: Vocal Ministry in the Un­programmed Meeting for Worship. Wallingford, Pennsylvania: Pendle Hill, 1972.

______  "The Quaker Decisionmaking Process." Unpublished manuscript of

talk given to Guilford College Faculty, February 12, 1975.

Steiner, Jurg. Amicable Agreement Versus Majority Rule: Conflict Resolution in Switzerland. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1974.

Trueblood, D. Elton. "The Quaker Method of Reaching Decisions." In Beyond Dilemmas, _pp. 104-124. Edited by S. B. Laughlin. New York: Lippincott, 1937

Tucker, Robert W. "Structural Incongruities in Quaker Service' Quaker Religious Thought, Autumn 1971, _pp. 5-23, 35-40.

Unger, Roberto Mangabeira. Knowledge and Politics. New York: Free Press, 1975.

Verba, Sidney. "Assumptions of Rationality and Non-Rationality in Models of the International System' World Politics. 14 (1961):93-117.

Von Schulze Gaevernitz, G. Democracy and Religion. London: George Allen & Un-win, 1930.

Walker, James F. "The Quaker Meeting for Business' Pendle Hill Bulletin 190 (April 1967):1-3.

Webb, Eugene J., Campbell, Donald T., Schwartz, Richard D. and Sechrest, Lee. Unobtrusive Measures: Nonreactive Research in the Social Sciences. Chicago: Rand McNally and Company. 1966.

Whitehead, Alfred North. Adventures of Ideas. New York: Free Press, 1933.

Wilson, James D. "Quakerism and the Democratic Process' Quaker Life, May 1973, pp. 26-29.