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DisciplineIowa Yearly Meeting of Friends(Conservative)1974
"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 fulfiled in the spirit, not the letter, for the letter killeht, but the spirit giveth life." (Letter from the meeting of Elders at Balby, 1656) [p I] "Even in the Apostles' days, Christians were too apt to strive after a wrong unity and uniformity in outward practices and observations, and to judge one another unrighteously in these matters; and mark, it is not the different practice from one another that breaks the peace and unity, but the judging of one another because of different practices… For this is the true ground of love and unity, not that such a man walks and does just as I do, but because I feel the same Spirit and Life in him, and that he walks in his rank, in his own order, in his proper way and place of subjection to that; and this is far more pleasing to me than if he walked just in that track wherein I walk." (Isaac Penington)
"Friends believe in the Holy Scriptures, but they have never placed them above the Spirit that inspired them. The principle upon which the first Friends placed most emphasis was the Holy Spirit in the hearts of men." (Discipline, Iowa Yearly Meeting of Friends (Conservative), 1953)
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