Ethical Mysticism in the Society of Friends

by Howard H. Brinton

Overview

The following pages deal primarily with essential Quaker beliefs. By this I do not mean the fruit of the Quaker tree, such as its social doctrines, but its roots. To say that the Quakers have no fixed creed, accepted as final and as a basis for membership, is not to assert that they have no primary beliefs. It would be just as absurd for a scientist to say that he had no beliefs because no scientific statement is accepted as fixed and final. Similarly the Quakers may have many beliefs, but the Spirit of Truth in the heart may reveal further truth. This Spirit of Truth works through historical research into the origins of our religion as well as through inward experience. As Jesus said to his disciples: “When the Spirit of Truth comes he will guide you into all the truth” (John 16:13).

Product Details

BN ID:	2940148252351
Publisher:	Pendle Hill Publications
Publication date:	02/19/2014
Series:	Pendle Hill Pamphlets , #156
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	30
Sales rank:	972,100
File size:	123 KB

About the Author

Each publication of Howard Brinton’s always carries with it the happy assurance that something of permanent value has been written. The present pamphlet adds the further assurance that, even in his eighties, Howard Brinton was still writing it. Ethical Mysticism is, to quote the author’s description, “an effort to classify and characterize the religious experience of Quakers throughout their history.” Surely no one is better qualified to do this than the Director Emeritus of Pendle Hill, who, to his embarrassment, once found himself introduced to a gathering of Zen Buddhist monks as “the abbot of a Quaker monastery.” Transcending sectarian limits, he brings to these pages the fruit of many lifetimes — his own and that of numerous Quaker Journalists — presented with that fusion of depth and perspective which has always been a hall-mark of his work.