John S made an inter­est­ing com­ment at the end of my last post (all ) about live twit­ter­ing tonight’s Pres­i­den­tial Debate got me think­ing about a Quak­er response to the debates might be. As I’ve admit­ted I can be rather snarky and par­ti­san. So I pre­pared some inter­est­ing quotes from some old Quak­er tes­i­monies and have been sprin­kling them through­out my twit­ter commentary. 

• 1762: Friends ought not be active in elect­ing to offices, the exe­cu­tion where­of tends to lay wast our Chris­t­ian testimony
• <1879: Mem­bers should main­tain inof­fen­sive, cir­cum­spect emeanour towards all men, man­i­fest­ing peace­able spir­it of Christ.
• <1879: Friends should avoid those heats & con­tro­ver­sies respect­ing the poli­cies and gov­t’s of the world.
• 1874: The mere nat­ur­al wis­dom and will of man have no palce in the church of Christ.
• 1808: The preser­va­tion of love and uni­ty is a duty in every state of reli­gious attainment.
• 1853: It is upon the sim­plic­i­ty of the Truth as it is in Jesus that our tes­ti­mo­ny to plain­ness and mod­er­a­tion rests.
• <1879: Friends are to avoid elect­ing brethren to civ­il govt as may sub­ject them to temp­ta­tion of vio­lat­ing testimonies.
• 1808: Friends are not to unite in war­like mea­sures, either offen­sive or defen­sive, we are subj of Mes­sai­h’s peace­ful reign.
• 1843: Fds must decline accep­tance of any office or sta­tion in civ­il govt w/duties incon­sis­tent w/our reli­gious principles.
• 1843: Friends warned vs. rais­ing & cir­cu­lat­ing paper cred­it w/appearance of val­ue w/o intrin­sic reality.
• 1843: Friends should be open-hearted and lib­er­al in rais­ing funds for relief for mem­bers in indi­gent circumstances.
• 1843: So may we be liv­ing mem­bers of the Church mil­i­tant on earth; and inhab­i­tants of that city which hath foundations.
• 1853: The stan­dards which the world adopts in pur­suit of trade and desire for rich­es in not safe for dis­ci­ple of Christ.
• 1853: May no Friends involve them­selves in worldy con­cerns dis­qual­i­fy for right use of their time, tal­ents & tem­po­ral substance.

The quotes are culled from “Chris­t­ian Advices” (1879) and “Rules of Dis­ci­pline” (1843), both pub­lished by Philadel­phia Year­ly Meet­ing. I think these are Ortho­dox and Hick­site respec­tive­ly, but I’m not an expert in the inves­tiga­tive details nec­es­sary to dif­fer­en­ti­ate between year­ly meet­ing pub­li­ca­tions. If any­one knows “Chris­t­ian Advices” says it’s avail­able from the Friends Book­store at 304 Arch Street; “Rules of Dis­ci­pline” is print­ed by John Richards of 130 N. Third Street.