QuakerInfo.com Forum

[Anthony]

Hi Mc,

[McGuffey]

I use the phrase "bearing witness" as a metaphor for experiencing the immediate revelation of the light within. The term "Liberal Quaker" will perhaps always be linked to Elias Hicks, so let me post here one of his discernments and leadings about that subject: " I don't want to express a great many words, but I want you to be called home to the substance, for the Scriptures and all the books in the world can do no more; Jesus could do no more than to recommend to the Comforter, which is the light within him. " God is light, and in him is no darkness at all, and if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another. Because the light is one in all, therefore it binds us together in the bonds of love- that love which casts out all fear. So that they who dwell in God dwell in love, and they are constrained to walk in it, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleaneth us from all sin. But what blood, my Friends. Did Jesus Christ, the Savior, ever have any material blood ? Not a drop of it, my Friends- not a drop of it. That blood which cleaneth from the life of all sin, was the life of the soul of Jesus. The soul of man has no material blood; but as the outward material blood , created from the dust of the earth, is the life of these bodies of flesh, so with respect to the soul, the immortal and invisible spirit, its blood is that life which God breathed into it". When Hicks says that Scriture and all the books in the world "can do no more" than this indwelling of light that is in all, I think he articulated one of Liberal Quakers defining historical statements.

[McGuffey]

Has anyone had contact with a book titled "William Penn on Religion and Ethics: The Emergence of Liberal Quakerism" by Hugh Babour, editor ? I recently ran accross referance to this work, and am curious if anyone has had a chance to review it. It is a rather expensive text, which may be keeping it out of circulation.