Who Are the Quakers? George Fox and the Inner Light

Many people know the Quakers for their honesty or for Pennsylvania. Fewer know what the first Quakers believed, why thousands of them were jailed in seventeenth-century England, or why today's Friends range from over a hundred thousand in Kenya to British meetings where many doubt that God exists.

Early Friends confessed Christ, suffered for their conscience and spoke against slavery before most of their neighbors. Yet they gave up the baptism, the Eucharist and the ordained ministry that the Church had kept since the apostles. This article tells their story, failings included, and gives the Orthodox answer.

In brief

The Religious Society of Friends grew from the preaching of George Fox (1624-1691), who in 1647 heard, as he later wrote, that "There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition." From 1652 the movement spread quickly. Friends taught that Christ, the true Light, shines in every conscience. Robert Barclay's Apology called Scripture a "Secondary Rule, subordinate to the Spirit," treated water baptism and the breaking of bread as figures meant only "for a Time," and rejected ministry resting on "human Commission." Friends refused oaths and war, were heavily persecuted and founded Pennsylvania; Philadelphia Yearly Meeting barred slaveholding in 1776. Today they include evangelical and pastoral churches, Conservative Friends and liberal silent meetings, some of whose members do not believe in God. The Orthodox Church honors what was good in the Quaker witness but judges plainly that rejecting baptism, the Eucharist and the priesthood departs from the apostolic faith.

Thesis: Christian Friends are erring brethren who confess Christ but have set aside the Mysteries He gave His Church, while nontheist Quakerism has left the Christian faith altogether; what Friends sought in the inward Light is given in its fullness in the Orthodox Church, through the Mysteries and not apart from them.

George Fox and the first Friends

George Fox was born in Leicestershire in 1624.¹ In his Journal, under the year 1647, he recalls: "I saw there was none among them all that could speak to my condition," and then "I heard a voice which said, 'There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition;' and when I heard it, my heart did leap for joy."²

Fox preached widely, often standing up in parish churches, which he called "steeple-houses," after the sermon. Jailed at Derby in 1650, he recorded that "Justice Bennet of Derby" was "the first that called us Quakers, because I bid them tremble at the word of the Lord."³ The nickname was meant as mockery. The members called themselves Friends, a name usually traced to John 15:14, and also "Friends of Truth."⁴

In 1652 Fox climbed Pendle Hill in Lancashire. "From the top of this hill," he wrote, "the Lord let me see in what places he had a great people to be gathered."⁵ That year he found such a people around Sedbergh and Preston Patrick and at Swarthmoor Hall, the home of Judge Thomas Fell and his wife Margaret, whom Fox married in 1669 after she was widowed. Margaret Fell remembered his words in the Ulverston church: Christ "was the Light of the world and lighteth every man that cometh into the world; and that by this Light they might be gathered to God."⁶ The Library of Congress dates the formation of the Quakers to 1652 and notes that many scholars see them as "radical Puritans."⁷ {{strong: By Fox's own account his decisive experience came in 1647, and the movement began to gather in the north of England in 1652.}}

What early Friends believed

Christ and the inward Light

Accused of denying Christ, Fox and his companions answered in a public letter from Barbados in 1671: "we own and believe in Jesus Christ, his beloved and only begotten Son," "conceived by the Holy Ghost, and born of the Virgin Mary," who "was crucified for us in the flesh" and "rose again the third day."⁸ That is a Christian confession.

What made Friends distinctive was the Light. Their key text was John 1:9: "That was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world" (NKJV). The Scottish Friend Robert Barclay, whose Apology set out "the Principles and Doctrines of the People called Quakers," taught that this Light "enlighteneth the Hearts of all, for a Time, in order to Salvation" and is "the Purchase of his Death."⁹ Writing from prison at Launceston in 1656, Fox urged Friends to "walk cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in every one." In the same letter he speaks of "the principle of God" in a person "which he hath transgressed."¹⁰ For Fox, then, the phrase meant God's Light accusing and calling the conscience, not a divine spark that makes everyone holy already.

Scripture, sacraments and ministry

Friends honored the Bible but placed it below the Spirit's direct teaching. The Scriptures, Barclay wrote, "are only a Declaration of the Fountain, and not the Fountain itself"; they are "a Secondary Rule, subordinate to the Spirit."¹¹ Friends met in silence and waited for the Spirit to move someone to speak. Francis Howgill recalled how they "waited upon him in pure silence."¹²

Barclay also explained why there was no water and no bread. "As there is one Lord, and one Faith, so there is one Baptism," namely "the Baptism of the Spirit and Fire"; John's water baptism "was commanded for a Time, and not to continue for ever." The Communion of Christ's Body and Blood "is inward and spiritual," and the breaking of bread was "a Figure" used "for a Time, for the Sake of the Weak."¹³ As for ministers, those without the inward gift, "however learned, or authorized by the Commission of Men and Churches, are to be esteemed but as Deceivers."¹⁴

Persecution, excess and the "Holy Experiment"

In 1656 James Nayler, one of the movement's leaders, rode into Bristol while followers spread garments before him and cried out "Holy, holy, holy." Tried for blasphemy, he maintained "that 'he denied James Nayler to be Christ, but Christ was in him'," and Parliament had him whipped through London.¹⁵

Friends also suffered real injustice. Because they would not swear oaths (Matthew 5:34), Parliament passed the Quakers Act of 1662, which opens by reciting that Quakers held the taking of an oath "in any case whatsoever" to be "altogeather unlawfull."¹⁶ According to the Library of Congress, "By 1680, 10,000 Quakers had been imprisoned in England, and 243 had died of torture and mistreatment in the King's jails." Puritan Massachusetts hanged four Quakers between 1659 and 1661, among them Mary Dyer on June 1, 1660 (see What Did Colonial Americans Actually Believe About Christianity?).¹⁷ In 1660 Friends told Charles II, "All bloody principles and practices we do utterly deny, with all outward wars, and strife, and fightings with outward weapons."¹⁸ Relief came with the Toleration Act of 1689.¹⁹

William Penn (1644-1718), who joined the Friends as a young man, turned a debt owed by Charles II to his father into the charter for Pennsylvania in 1681. His charter of religious liberty pledged that those who believed in "One Almighty and eternal God" would "in no wayes be molested or prejudiced for their Religious Perswasion," and by 1685 as many as 8,000 Quakers had come.²⁰ Friends remember the colony as Penn's "Holy Experiment" in government.²¹ Yet, as the state historic site at his Pennsbury estate says plainly, "William Penn had slaves."²²

Quakers and slavery

Friends were early opponents of slavery, but not all at once. In 1688 Friends in Germantown, Pennsylvania, sent up a petition against it, and the monthly, quarterly and yearly meetings "did not act on the petition." Philadelphia Yearly Meeting declared slavery a sin in 1754 and in 1758 denounced the slave trade, but not yet slaveholding itself. Only in 1776 did it make slaveholding "a disownable offense," and "no members were disowned until 1778."²³ {{very-strong: Philadelphia Yearly Meeting barred slaveholding among its members in 1776, nearly ninety years after the Germantown petition.}} The later story is told in How Slavery Split American Protestant Churches.

The branches of Friends today

American Friends divided in 1827-28, in what they call the Great Separation, over "doctrine and church authority."²⁴ Elias Hicks stressed the indwelling Christ in a way some Friends felt left out the historical Jesus and the Bible. His followers became the Hicksites; their opponents were called Orthodox Friends (no connection with the Orthodox Church). The Orthodox branch later divided between followers of Joseph John Gurney, who stressed the Bible and the atonement, and of John Wilbur, who stressed the inward Light; the Wilburites became the Conservative Friends.²⁵ In 1887 delegates of the Orthodox yearly meetings issued the Richmond Declaration of Faith, which confesses the Trinity yet holds that "our Lord appointed no outward rite or ceremony for observance in His church."²⁶

Friends World Committee for Consultation put the number of Quakers in 2017 at about 400,000 in 87 countries, with 181,396 in Africa and 119,285 in Kenya alone, more than in the United States (76,360).²⁷

Friends General Conference describes four branches in North America.²⁸ Liberal Friends hold silent, unprogrammed meetings without pastors. Conservative Friends keep earlier practices such as silent worship and some plain dress. Pastoral Friends range from silent meetings to services with hymns, Bible reading and a sermon. Evangelical Friends worship much like other evangelical Protestants; their own Faith and Practice calls baptism and communion "spiritual realities" and grants "liberty to one another" on "the use (or non-use) of the physical elements," so some of their churches do use water and bread.²⁹

Within the liberal branch belief in God itself has weakened. In Jennifer May Hampton's 2013 survey of British Quakers, as reported in The Friend, 14.5 per cent said they did not believe in God and 28.1 per cent were "not sure."³⁰ The British Nontheist Friends Network exists to support Friends and others "who regard religion as a human creation."³¹ Yet Britain Yearly Meeting's own Advices say that "The Religious Society of Friends is rooted in Christianity and has always found inspiration in the life and teachings of Jesus."³²

An Orthodox assessment

What Orthodox Christians can honor

Fox's longing for a living encounter with Christ is a Christian longing. The Orthodox Church knows it well: her monks have prayed in stillness for centuries, and St Gregory Palamas defended their experience of the divine light (see Gregory Palamas and the Hesychast Controversy). Friends' truthfulness, their courage under persecution and their early turn against slavery deserve respect. On war, St Basil, while noting that "Homicide in war is not reckoned by our Fathers as homicide," still counselled that those "whose hands are not clean" should "abstain from communion for three years."³³ The Church does not make pacifism binding on all Christians, but she understands the Quaker witness for peace.

Two different cases

Friends who confess the Holy Trinity and Jesus Christ as Lord, as the Barbados letter and the Richmond Declaration do, are erring brethren. Their error is serious: most have never received the baptism by which Christ joins a person to His Body. Nontheist Quakerism is another matter. A view that regards religion "as a human creation" is not a form of Christianity, whatever meeting house it gathers in, and it is false: God's "eternal power and Godhead" are "clearly seen" in what He has made (Romans 1:20, NKJV). Where Friends keep the language of the Light while setting aside Christ's divinity, they have kept a word and lost its meaning, for in Fox and Barclay the Light was Christ Himself.

The Light and the Church

The Orthodox Church also confesses that Christ enlightens every person who comes into the world. The error lies in setting that inward Light above Scripture and against the Church. The Spirit who enlightens the heart inspired the Scriptures and guides the Church, and He does not contradict Himself, so private leadings must be tested within the Body of Christ (1 John 4:1), as the Nayler affair showed. The light of Christ is received in prayer, in the Mysteries and in the communion of the saints, never apart from them (see What Is Theosis?).

Baptism and the Eucharist were not "for a time"

Barclay's central claim was that outward baptism and the breaking of bread were temporary. Scripture says otherwise. Christ sent the apostles to make disciples, "baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit," and promised to be with them "always, even to the end of the age" (Matthew 28:19-20). When Cornelius's household had already received the Spirit, St Peter asked, "Can anyone forbid water, that these should not be baptized who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?" (Acts 10:47). The Spirit did not replace the water; Christ joined them: "unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God" (John 3:5). Of the Eucharist St Paul writes, "as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till He comes" (1 Corinthians 11:26). The rite lasts until Christ returns.

The early Church read these texts the same way. The Didache commands baptism "into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in living water," and says "let no one eat or drink of your Thanksgiving (Eucharist), but they who have been baptized."³⁴ St Justin Martyr says the Eucharist is received "not as common bread and common drink" but as "the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh."³⁵ St Ignatius of Antioch warned against those who "confess not the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ."³⁶ St Cyril of Jerusalem taught the newly baptized to regard the bread and wine "not as bare elements," for they are "the Body and Blood of Christ."³⁷ {{very-strong: The earliest Christian writings after the New Testament show water baptism in the name of the Trinity and a regular Eucharist as the ordinary life of the Church.}} The Creed of 381 confesses "one baptism for the remission of sins," the same "one baptism" (Ephesians 4:5) that Barclay turned against water, and as Fr Thomas Hopko wrote for the Orthodox Church in America, "The way of entry into the Christian Church is by baptism in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."³⁸ A Friend who has never been baptized with water in the name of the Holy Trinity must therefore be baptized to enter the Orthodox Church, and is then chrismated. This is not a second baptism, since there was no first one. For the wider Protestant debate see Why Protestants and Orthodox Differ on Sacraments.

Ministry and the priesthood

The apostles "appointed elders in every church" (Acts 14:23). St Ignatius wrote: "Let that be deemed a proper Eucharist, which is [administered] either by the bishop, or by one to whom he has entrusted it," and "It is not lawful without the bishop either to baptize or to celebrate a love-feast."³⁹ To call ministers commissioned by the Church "Deceivers" unless they also claim a private inward gift reverses the order the apostles left. Orthodoxy agrees with Friends that Christ alone is the true High Priest; Hopko writes that "Christ is the only priest, pastor and teacher of the Christian Church," and adds that holy orders are "the objective guarantee of the perpetual presence of Christ with his people."⁴⁰ All the baptized share Christ's royal priesthood (1 Peter 2:9), but Christ acts through the ministers He has given, in succession from the apostles (see Did the Early Church Believe in Apostolic Succession?).

The Filioque in the Richmond Declaration

Friends who hold the Richmond Declaration confess the Trinity, a real point of agreement. But the Declaration speaks of "one Holy Spirit, proceeding from the Father and the Son."⁴¹ That is the Western Filioque, and it is an error. Christ said the Spirit "proceeds from the Father" (John 15:26), and the Creed of 381 says the same, without "and the Son" (see The Filioque: Why One Phrase Helped Divide East and West).

Objections and replies

"Outward rites easily become empty formalism."

The danger is real. But the cure for a sacrament received carelessly is to receive it with repentance and faith, not to abolish what Christ commanded. Britain Yearly Meeting itself grants that "the grace of God is experienced by many through the outward rite of baptism."⁴² Orthodoxy adds that this grace rests on Christ's own command and promise.

"There is only one baptism, the baptism of the Spirit."

Ephesians 4:5 does speak of "one baptism." In Acts, though, that one baptism is given with water and the Spirit together (Acts 2:38; 10:47). To make the Spirit and the water rivals is to separate what Christ joined.

What we can say confidently

• George Fox dates his decisive experience to 1647, and Friends began to gather as a movement in 1652.
• Barclay's Apology treated water baptism and the breaking of bread as temporary figures and Scripture as a "Secondary Rule."
• Friends were heavily persecuted in England and Massachusetts, and Penn, founder of tolerant Pennsylvania, held slaves.
• Philadelphia Yearly Meeting barred slaveholding in 1776, after long hesitation.
• The New Testament and the earliest Fathers treat water baptism, the Eucharist and the ordained ministry as lasting gifts of Christ to His Church.

What remains disputed

• How best to classify early Quakerism: as radical Puritanism, as many scholars do according to the Library of Congress, or as a more distinct movement.
• {{debated: How Fox's phrase "that of God in every one" should be read: as Christ's Light calling every conscience, which is how his own letter frames it, or as a divine element in human nature, a reading closer to later liberal Quakerism.}} Friends have argued over the inward Christ since the Hicksite separation.
• Exact membership and belief figures, which depend on counting methods and question wording.
• How many people Penn held in slavery, and whether he meant to free them.

Conclusion

George Fox was right that only Christ could speak to his condition. But the Christ who speaks to the heart is the same Christ who commanded His apostles to baptize, who took bread and said "This is My body which is given for you" (Luke 22:19), and who gave His Church shepherds. To receive His Light while refusing His Mysteries is to accept part of what He gives and decline the rest.

The Orthodox Church, the one Church confessed in the Creed, holds in its fullness the faith Friends were searching for: the silence of prayer and the inward light of Christ, together with the baptism, the Eucharist and the priesthood through which that Light has been given since Pentecost. To any Friend who longs, like Fox, for Christ Himself, the Church says: come and see (John 1:46), be baptized, and receive Him whole (see How Do You Become Orthodox?).

Notes

1. Library of Congress, "America as a Religious Refuge: The Seventeenth Century, Part 2," Religion and the Founding of the American Republic, https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel01-2.html (Fox 1624-1691); Evangelical Friends Church - Mid America Yearly Meeting, Faith and Practice, Part I: Friends History, Belief and Practice (2022), https://efcmaym.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Part-I-Friends-History-Belief-and-Practice-2022.pdf, ch. 3, "A Glance at Quaker History" (1624, 1647, 1652).
2. George Fox, The Journal of George Fox, ed. Norman Penney, vol. 1 (London: Friends' Tract Association, 1901), https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/75559, under the year 1647; also in Britain Yearly Meeting, Quaker Faith & Practice 19.02, https://qfp.quaker.org.uk/passage/19-02/.
3. Fox, Journal, vol. 1, under the year 1650 (see note 2).
4. Evangelical Friends Church - Mid America Yearly Meeting, Faith and Practice, Part I: Friends History, Belief and Practice (2022), https://efcmaym.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Part-I-Friends-History-Belief-and-Practice-2022.pdf, ch. 1, "Historical Summary."
5. Fox, Journal, vol. 1, ch. 5, 1652 (see note 2).
6. Margaret Fell's account, in Britain Yearly Meeting, Quaker Faith & Practice 19.07, https://qfp.quaker.org.uk/passage/19-07/.
7. Library of Congress, "America as a Religious Refuge" (see note 1).
8. George Fox and others, "For the Governor of Barbadoes," 1671, in The Journal of George Fox, ed. Norman Penney, vol. 2 (1901), https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/75590.
9. Robert Barclay, An Apology for the True Christian Divinity, 8th ed. (Birmingham: John Baskerville, 1765), https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/56487, title page and Proposition V.
10. George Fox, letter to ministers from Launceston prison, 1656, Quaker Faith & Practice 19.32, https://qfp.quaker.org.uk/passage/19-32/; also in Fox, Journal, vol. 1.
11. Barclay, Apology, Proposition III (see note 9).
12. Francis Howgill, in Quaker Faith & Practice 19.08, https://qfp.quaker.org.uk/passage/19-08/.
13. Barclay, Apology, Propositions XII and XIII (see note 9).
14. Barclay, Apology, Proposition X (see note 9).
15. Quaker Faith & Practice 19.11, https://qfp.quaker.org.uk/passage/19-11/; House of Commons Journal, vol. 7, 6-16 December 1656 ("Nayler's Blasphemies"), https://www.british-history.ac.uk/commons-jrnl/vol7/pp464-465, and 18 December 1656 ("Nayler's Punishment"), British History Online, https://www.british-history.ac.uk/commons-jrnl/vol7/pp469-470.
16. Quakers Act 1662 (14 Cha. 2 c. 1), preamble, in Statutes of the Realm, vol. 5, pp. 350-351, British History Online, https://www.british-history.ac.uk/statutes-realm/vol5/pp350-351 (also at legislation.gov.uk, https://www.legislation.gov.uk/aep/Cha2/14/1/contents).
17. Library of Congress, "America as a Religious Refuge" (see note 1).
18. Declaration to Charles II, 1660, Quaker Faith & Practice 24.04, https://qfp.quaker.org.uk/passage/24-04/.
19. EFC Mid-America, Faith and Practice, Part I, ch. 3, "A Glance at Quaker History" (see note 4).
20. Library of Congress, "America as a Religious Refuge" (see note 1).
21. EFC Mid-America, Faith and Practice, Part I, ch. 3, "A Glance at Quaker History" (see note 4).
22. Pennsbury Manor, "Colonial Americans at Pennsbury," https://www.pennsburymanor.org/history/colonial-americans-at-pennsbury/.
23. Haverford College, "Manumitted: The People Enslaved by Quakers," About, https://manumissions.haverford.edu/about.
24. EFC Mid-America, Faith and Practice, Part I, ch. 1, "Historical Summary" (see note 4).
25. New York Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, history of the yearly meeting, https://nyym.org/node/124.
26. Declaration of Faith Issued by the Richmond Conference in 1887, sections "Of God" and "Baptism," QuakerInfo.com, https://www.quakerinfo.com/rdf.shtml.
27. Friends World Committee for Consultation, "Map: Finding Quakers Around the World," https://fwcc.world/resources_cpt/map-finding-quakers-around-the-world/, and the 2017 map, https://fwcc.world/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/fwccworldmap2017.pdf.
28. Friends General Conference, "Branches of the Quaker Faith in North America," https://www.fgcquaker.org/quakerism/branches/.
29. EFC Mid-America, Faith and Practice, Part I, ch. 4, "Beliefs," section "The Sacraments" (see note 4).
30. "Forty-three per cent of Quakers 'don't believe in God', says magazine," The Friend, 17 May 2019, https://thefriend.org/article/forty-three-per-cent-of-quakers-dont-believe-in-god-says-magazine.
31. Nontheist Friends Network, home page, https://nontheist-quakers.org.uk/.
32. Quaker Faith & Practice 1.02, Advices and queries 4, https://qfp.quaker.org.uk/passage/1-02/.
33. St Basil the Great, Letter 188, canon 13, trans. Blomfield Jackson, NPNF2 8, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3202188.htm.
34. Didache 7 and 9, trans. M. B. Riddle, ANF 7, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0714.htm.
35. St Justin Martyr, First Apology 66, trans. Marcus Dods and George Reith, ANF 1, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0126.htm.
36. St Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Smyrnaeans 7, trans. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, ANF 1, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0109.htm.
37. St Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lecture 22 (Mystagogical Catechesis 4), 6, trans. Edwin Hamilton Gifford, NPNF2 7, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/310122.htm.
38. Thomas Hopko, The Orthodox Faith, Orthodox Church in America, vol. 1, "The Symbol of Faith: Sacraments," https://www.oca.org/orthodoxy/the-orthodox-faith/doctrine-scripture/the-symbol-of-faith/sacraments.
39. St Ignatius, Smyrnaeans 8 (see note 36).
40. Thomas Hopko, The Orthodox Faith, Orthodox Church in America, vol. 2, "The Sacraments: Holy Orders," https://www.oca.org/orthodoxy/the-orthodox-faith/worship/the-sacraments/holy-orders.
41. Richmond Declaration, "Of God" (see note 26).
42. Quaker Faith & Practice 27.40 (London Yearly Meeting, 1986), https://qfp.quaker.org.uk/passage/27-40/.

Bibliography

Primary sources

• The Holy Bible, New King James Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982.
• Fox, George. The Journal of George Fox. Ed. Norman Penney. 2 vols. London: Friends' Tract Association, 1901.
• Barclay, Robert. An Apology for the True Christian Divinity. 8th ed. Birmingham: John Baskerville, 1765.
• Quakers Act 1662 (14 Cha. 2 c. 1). Statutes of the Realm, vol. 5. British History Online.
• House of Commons Journal, vol. 7 (18 December 1656). British History Online.
• Ante-Nicene Fathers, vols. 1 and 7: Ignatius, To the Smyrnaeans; Justin Martyr, First Apology; Didache. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, vols. 7 and 8: Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures; Basil the Great, Letters. Buffalo: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1885-1895.

Orthodox and patristic sources

• Hopko, Thomas. The Orthodox Faith, vols. 1 and 2. Orthodox Church in America (online edition).

Other scholarship and reference

• Library of Congress. "America as a Religious Refuge: The Seventeenth Century, Part 2." Religion and the Founding of the American Republic.
• Haverford College. "Manumitted: The People Enslaved by Quakers."
• Pennsbury Manor. "Colonial Americans at Pennsbury."
• The Friend. "Forty-three per cent of Quakers 'don't believe in God', says magazine." 17 May 2019 (reporting Jennifer May Hampton's 2013 survey).

Sources from the Quaker tradition

• Britain Yearly Meeting. Quaker Faith & Practice, 5th ed., passages 1.02, 19.02, 19.07, 19.08, 19.11, 19.32, 24.04, 27.40.
• Declaration of Faith Issued by the Richmond Conference in 1887.
• Evangelical Friends Church - Mid America Yearly Meeting. Faith and Practice, Part I: Friends History, Belief and Practice. 2022.
• Friends General Conference. "Branches of the Quaker Faith in North America."
• Friends World Committee for Consultation. "Finding Quakers Around the World" (2017 map and current page).
• New York Yearly Meeting. History of the yearly meeting.
• Nontheist Friends Network. Website.