(1)The Reality of The Light Within, The Inner Teacher; (2) The Universality of the Light; (3) The Primacy of Revelation Over Scripture: (4) Continuing Revelation

(1) The Reality of The Light Within, The Inner Teacher

Mind The Light That Is In Thee

We direct thee to within thyself, to mind and have regard unto that which is within thee, to wit, the Light of Truth, the true Light which enlightened every man that cometh into the world. Here thou shalt find a Principle certain and infallible, through which increasing and going on into, thou mayest at length arrive unto a happy condition. Of this thou mayest highly adventure the tryal. He that will not adventure, shall never begin, much less finish his own salvation. We say then, that we exhort every one to turn unto the Light that's in him.

We can judge no doctrine, no Book to be Divine except by some inward and immediate knowledge of what really is Divine. Without this Light the Scriptures are only Words and Letters. No finite thing can bring us a knowledge of God unless we already have within us a sufficient knowledge of Him to make us able to appreciate and judge the Divine character of the particular revelation. God must be assumed as present in the soul before any basis of truth or of religion can be found. The Light is the first Principle of Religion. —Mind, therefore, the Light that is in thee.

Peter Balling, The Light on the Candlestick (1663)

Art Thou a Child of the Light, and Hast Walked in the Light?

The Scriptures were the prophets’ words and Christ’s and the apostles’ words, and what as they spoke they enjoyed and possessed and had it from the Lord.

Then what has any to do with the scriptures but as they came to the Spirit that gave them forth. You will say Christ saith this and the apostles say this, but what canst thou say? Art thou a child of the Light, and hast walked in the Light, and what thou speakest, is it inwardly from God?

George Fox

A Principle Confined To No Forms Of Religion

There is a principle which is pure, placed in the human mind, which in different places and ages hath different names; it is however pure and proceeds from God. It is deep and inward, confined to no forms of religion, nor excluded from any, where the heart stands in perfect sincerity. In whomsoever this takes root and grows, of what nation soever, they become brethren.

John Woolman

Everyone Is Enlightened From Same Source

Everyone is enlightened by the same divine light that Jesus was enlightened with; and we receive it from the same source.

He has not left a rational creature without a witness in his soul . . . He does not send them away [to Scripture and priest] to find out what his will is; the knowledge is within their own breasts . . . those who have never seen any written testimony of it; they have it as certainly as we have it.

Elias Hicks

(2) The Universality of the Light

Spiritual enlightenment may be achieved by everyone everywhere. It may be experienced in the teachings of all the great religious systems or in the personal and private experiences of the individual seeker who may have no religion at all.

Quakerism testifies to the reality of the inward Light which is available to everyone, be they heathen, Turk or Jew. It is not surprising, therefore, that Quaker literature from its very beginnings has reflected the theme of the universality of revelation.

Everywhere of One Religion

The humble, meek, merciful, just, pious and devout souls are everywhere of one religion; and when death has taken off the mask they will know one another, though the diverse liveries they wear here makes them strangers. This world is a form; our bodies are forms; and no visible acts of devotion can be without forms. But yet the less form in religion the better, since God is a Spirit; for the more mental our worship, the more adequate to the nature of God; the more silent, the more suitable to the language of a Spirit.

William Penn

Inclusion, Not Exclusion

The Universal andI have assumed a name today for my religious principles—Quaker-Catholicism—having direct spiritual teaching for its distinctive dogma, yet recognizing the high worth of all other forms of Faith; a system, in the sense of inclusion, not exclusion; and appreciation of the universal and the various teachings of the Spirit, through the faculties given us, or independent of them.

Caroline Fox

God Needs All Kinds of People

By processes too numerous and diverse even to summarize, I have reached a position which may be stated in a general way somewhat like this: “I believe that God's best for another may be so different from my experience and way of living as to be actually impossible for me. I recognize a change to have taken place in myself, from a certain assumption that mine was really the better way, to a very complete recognition that there is no one better way and that God needs all kinds of people and ways of living through which to manifest Himself in the World.

Henry T. Hodgkin

Humble Men and Holy of Heart

We are conscious of Christianity as one among a number of religions competing for the allegiance of intelligent and spiritually minded men and the relationship between them exercises men's minds and hearts. The world is much smaller, much more interdependent than it used to be and Christendom is no longer a self-contained unit. Few may have had the benefit of intimate friendship with the saints of other faiths like Gandhi or Vinoba Bhasve, but . . . increasing numbers of people have had personal contact with humble men and holy of heart in all walks of life whom they dare not deny that they have been taught of God.

Margaret Hobling

(3) The Primacy of Revelation Over Scripture

From the earliest days Quakers have asserted the primacy of the Inward Light, that is of direct revelation, over scripture. From George Fox onward, this assertion has been repeated over the years, sometimes in the face of severe opposition from institutional churches, and occasionally even from within the Society of Friends itself.

In the early days as much as at the present time, this Quaker view about the validity of personal revelation contrasted sharply with the fundamentalist viewpoint that placed absolute authority in the scriptures. 

That Light and Spirit which was before Scripture was Given Forth

Now the Lord hath opened to me His invisible power how that every man was enlightened by the Divine Light of Christ; and I saw it shine through all, and they that believed in it came out of condemnation and came into the Light of life, and became children of it, but they that hated it, and did not believe in it, were condemned by it, though they made a profession of Christ. This I saw in the pure openings of the Light, without the help of any man, neither did I know where to find it in the Scriptures, though afterwards, searching the Scriptures, I found it. For I saw in that Light and Spirit which was before Scripture was given forth, and which led the holy men of God to give them forth, that all must come to that Spirit, if they would know God or Christ or the Scriptures aright, which they that gave them forth were led and taught by.

George Fox

But What Canst Thou Say?

And the next day, being a lecture on a fast day, he went to the Ulverston steeplehouse, but came not in till people gathered; I and my children had been a long time there before. And when they were singing before the sermon, he came in; and when they had done singing, he stood up upon a seat or form and desired that he might have the liberty to speak. And he that was in the pulpit said he might. And the first words he spoke were as followeth: “He is not a Jew that is one outward, neither is that circumcision which is outward, but is a Jew that is one inward, and that is circumcision which is of the heart.” And so he went on and said, How that Christ was the Light of the world and lighteth every man that cometh into the world; and that by this Light they may be gathered to God, etc. And I stood up in my pew, and wondered at his doctrine, for I had never heard such before. And then he went on, and opened the Scriptures, and said, “The Scriptures were the prophets ‘words and Christ's and the apostles’ words, and what they spoke they enjoyed and possessed and had it from the Lord.” And said, “Then what had any to do with the Scriptures, but as they came to the Spirit that gave them forth. You will say, Christ saith this, and the apostles say this; but what canst thou say? Art thou a child of the Light and hast walked in the Light and what thou speakest is it inwardly from God?”

Margaret Fell

To Bring Men to the Knowledge of Things Beyond What Words can Utter

And the end of words is to bring men to the knowledge of things beyond what words can utter. So, learn of the Lord to make a right use of the Scriptures—which is by esteeming them in their right place, and prizing that above them which is above them.

Isaac Pennington

According to the Scriptures, The Spirit is the First and Principle Leader

Because the scriptures are only a declaration of the fountain and not the fountain itself, therefore they are not to be esteemed the principle ground of all truth and knowledge, nor yet the adequate, primary rule of faith and manners. Yet, because they give a true and faithful testimony of the first foundation, they are and may be esteemed a secondary rule, subordinate to the Spirit, from which they have all their excellency and certainty for, as by the inward testimony of the Spirit we do alone truly know them, so they testify that the Spirit is that Guide by which the saints are led into truth. Therefore, according to the Scriptures, the Spirit is the first and Principle leader.

Robert Barclay

The Letter Killeth, But the Spirit Giveth Life

Dearly beloved Friends, these things we do not lay upon you as a rule or form to walk by, but that all, with the measure of light which is pure and holy, may be guided: and so in the light walking and abiding, these may be fulfilled in the Spirit, not from the letter; for the letter killeth but the Spirit giveth life.

Balby Elders

Prizing That Above Scripture

And the end of words is to bring men to the knowledge of things beyond what words can utter. So, learn of the Lord to make a right use of the Scriptures: which is by esteeming them in their right place, and prizing that above them, which is above them.

Isaac Pennington

(4) Continuing Revelation

Constantly Expect New Openings

Don’t bow down thyself before the old experiences but behold the arm that has helped thee and that God who has often delivered thee. Remember that the manna descended from heaven daily; that it daily must be gathered and eaten, and that manna that was gathered yesterday cannot serve today for food.

William Penn, Works I

Revelation Confined to No Dispensation, It Has Never Been Closed

For the Puritan, revelation was a miraculous projection of God’s Word and Will from the supernatural world into this world. This miraculous projection had been made only in a distinct dispensation, through a limited number of Divinely chosen, specially prepared instruments, who received and transmitted the pure Word of God. When the dispensation ended, revelation came to a definite close. No word more could be added, as also none could be subtracted. All spiritual truth for the race for all ages was now unveiled; the only legitimate function which the man of God could henceforth exercise was that of interpretation. He could declare what the Word of God meant and how it was to be applied to the complicated affairs of human society. Only a specialist in theology could, from the nature of the case, be a minister under this system. The minister thus became invested with an extraordinary dignity and possessed of an influence quite sui generis.

For the Quaker, revelation was confined to no dispensation, it had never been closed. If any period was peculiarly the dispensation of the Holy Spirit, the Quaker believed that it was the present in which he was living. Instead of limiting the revelation of the Word of God to a few miraculous instruments who had lived in the remote dispensation, he insisted that God enlightens every soul that cometh into the world, communes by His Holy Spirit with all men everywhere, illuminates the conscience with a clear sense of the right and the wrong course in moral issues, and reveals His Will in definite and concrete matters to those who are sensitive recipients of it. The true minister, for the Quaker of that period, was a prophet . . . a revealer of present truth, and not a mere interpreter of a past revelation.

Rufus M. Jones