THE SPIRIT

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 divers liveries they wear here makes them strangers. This world is a form; our bodies are form; and no visible act of devotion can be without forms. But the less form in religion, the better, since God is a spirit....

-- William Penn, Some Fruits of Solitude, 1693

The Religious Society of Friends arose from personal experience of direct spiritual encounter with God as revealed in Jesus Christ. The conviction that God can and does speak to the condition of all persons emerged from that experience and spread with great rapidity among religious seekers of the seventeenth century. They became convinced that God strengthened, directed, and worked through them, and this conviction has remained at the center of Friends' faith and practice.

Dwell in the cool, sweet, holy power of God.... Dwell in the endless power of the Lord ... that hath the wisdom which is sweet and cool and pure.

-- George Fox, Letters

In speaking of God, we use various words, but we need to hear the truth beyond those words. The Divine Spirit, which Friends have variously called "The Inward Light," "The Christ Within," "The Seed," and "That of God in Everyone," has the power to raise up the good and to overcome the evil in our hearts. It can also render us capable of carrying out God's will in individual and social life. The source of Friends' testimonies and concerns is found in hearing and obeying this Spirit.

And [George Fox] 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 Light and hast walked in the Light, and what thou speakest is it inwardly from God?"

This opened me so that it cut me to the heart; and then I saw clearly we were all wrong. So I sat me down in my pew again, and cried bitterly. And I cried in my spirit to the Lord, "We are all thieves, we are all thieves, we have taken the Scriptures in words and know nothing of them in ourselves."

-- Margaret Fell, Introduction to The Journal of George Fox, 1694