Reviewed by Matthew Manera.
Brinton’s overview of Quakerism, unlike Elfrida Vipont’s The Story of Quakerism 1652-1952 and Ben Pink Dandelion’s An Introduction to Quakerism, “is not”, as Brinton says in his Introduction, “to produce a history of Quakerism, but, by means of historical illustrations, to examine a method.” In this way, it is a useful complement to these two books. Brinton examines early Quakerism by focusing on George Fox’s pastoral Epistles and Robert Barclay’s Apology, the former portraying “Quakerism as felt,” or experienced; the latter portraying “Quakerism as thought about.”
I’m trusting that those of you who read this are familiar with the basic historical facts of early Quakerism, and so will move quickly over the first three chapters, “To Wait Upon the Lord,” “The Light Within as Experienced,” and “The Light Within as Thought About.” Brinton explains how Quakers sought a religion based on the Spirit within, rather than on externally imposed forms and disciplines, how the Light Within or Spirit “was primary and the Scriptures a word of God” which is secondary and serves to “[confirm] and [clarify] the revelations of the Light Within”; he quotes Margaret Fell quoting George Fox —”You will say, Christ saith this, and the apostles say this; but what canst thou say?”; and mentions how the Light was to be realized in experience rather than in theory by “answering.” As Fox wrote, “Be faithful and spread the Truth abroad and walk in the Wisdom of God answering that of God in every one.” Brinton also distinguishes how Fox, as prophet, followed the Hebrew tradition, “bearing witness to the personal God whose prophets are instruments through which He utters his voice and works his will,” and how he, as philosopher, “followed the Hellenic tradition, apprehending the inner Unity which exists beyond time and space, Real as compared with the phenomenal world, One, as contrasted with the multiplicity recognized by the senses.”
Brinton also distinguishes between the Eternal Christ and the Historic Jesus, the former being the Light Within that is a part of every person, so that, as Fox writes, “we are regenerated, not so much by the death of Christ [the Historic Jesus], as by his life in our hearts.” He addresses the idea of Perfectionism, which Barclay was careful to explain: “Perfection means simply living up to the measure of light that is given [to each of us], and if we are faithful to that, we shall be given more.” Brinton concludes the first three chapters with this: “In Quakerism there are two complementary movements, withdrawal to an inward Source of Truth and return to action in the world. The first is Greek in its religious emphasis, the second, Hebrew. Quakerism is both contemplative and active, both metaphysical and ethical, not because it has combined the two in a consistent system of thought, but because it has combined them through experience.”
In discussing the Meeting for Worship, Brinton observes, “As Catholic worship is centered in the altar and Protestant worship in the sermon, worship for the Society of Friends attempts to realize as its center the divine Presence revealed within,” which involves the idea of withdrawal and return mentioned above: “In worship we center our attention on that which is deeper than discursive thought.” Meetings for Worship involve a measure of vocal ministry, and what Brinton has to say about this should speak to us today: “Ministry in a Friends meeting should be spontaneous in the sense that no one comes to meeting either expecting to speak or expecting not to speak.” “The first-person singular pronoun is seldom heard in Quaker ministry, nor does the speaker declare his own experience except as his experience may illustrate a more general truth.” The speaker should “learn to recognize and reject the wish to speak which comes from a different source [than the Spirit], however disguised, such as an inclination to exhibit his own powers or knowledge or simply lack of inhibition.”
Writing of how Quakers reach decisions, Brinton says, “the meeting is to act as a whole and be governed by Truth, not by persons appointed to rule.” Distinguishing meeting for worship from meeting for business, he says, “the meeting for worship concerns being, while the meeting for business concerns doing.” Meetings for business, in making decisions for moving forward on any issue, depend on all voices being heard and on consensus, rather than on compromise: “At its best, the Quaker method does not result in compromise [which] is not likely to satisfy anyone completely. The objective of the Quaker method is to discover Truth which will satisfy everyone more fully than did any position previously held.” Neither is unity to be equated with uniformity: “Unity is spiritual, uniformity mechanical.” Ideally, anyone who speaks in meeting for business will begin with “I feel,” rather than “I think,” feeling being the “intuitive apprehension of the Light of Truth.” That being said, he points out that the Quaker method works better in small rather than large groups, and that it “is likely to be successful in proportion as the members are acquainted with one another; better still if real affection exists among them.” As for the origin of social concerns in Quakerism, Brinton says that the focus in this area has to do with Community, Harmony, Equality, and Simplicity.
In terms of the intersection of the Meeting and the World, Brinton describes Quaker work among Negro slaves and Indians [designations Brinton uses throughout his book], as well as the non-violent approaches they took towards those in prisons, beginning with the work of Elizabeth Fry in England in 1813, and towards those in mental hospitals, where the first such hospital in the United States to work with Quaker principles, the Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia, founded in 1756, “was the first institution where cure rather than custody and repression was the underlying principle in the treatment of the insane.”
As for the reason for the Quaker peace testimony, Brinton says of soldiers that “the soldier who is killed suffers a material injury; the soldier who kills suffers a spiritual injury.” Relief work, “undertaken to repair damages caused by war or conflict is a natural corollary of the peace principle. Its beginnings go back to the Irish war in 1690, and the banishment of Acadians from Canada in 1755, and continue through to the establishment of the American Friends Service Committee in 1917 during the first World War. A follow-up to Brinton’s book, Friends for 350 Years (289.6 BRI), was published in 2002, with a historical update and notes by Margaret Hope Bacon, tracing the developments in Quakerism, especially in America, between 1952 and 2002.