On this page

• Text (1)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    Untitled Article

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Untitled Article

    ground for a free and fair irapartation of sentiments , among those who have equal rights , and who nieet for the express purpose of using them ! Such internal policy would most probably be preparing

    the way for dissatisfaction and revolt among themselves , and be setting an example of the exercise of an arbitrary power i n matters of religion , which every true friend to religious liberty , in any com . xnunion , must wish to see exploded .

    The annual custom of the ^ Friends , at their Yearly Meeting , in addressing to their absent breih , ren a religious epistle , may be highly useful and laudable , especially if proceeding from fair and

    brotherly union , in a solemn salutation . The reading of such an epistle in their meetings for worship throughout the society 5 ( though a remarkable Fqrm ) may be attended with good effects ,-by

    exciting aft increase of religious zeal for the cause of piety and virtue . But here a question of much importance arises , for further improvement in their meetings of divine worship ; and I humbly

    hope they will not lightly consider the suggestion I am about to make . If religious good is to be expected from the public reading of their own epistle , —what think they of

    the public reading of some of the more sacred epistles of the primitive : apostles , —epistles providentially preserved for the instruction and edification of all Christian

    Churches ? The reading of these , -and various other devotional parts of the sacred scriptures , is considered by most other Christian societies as very important to their ippblic edification . Doubtless a ^ yra founded ou that of the

    Untitled Article

    ancient people of God , under the Old Dispensation , * uniformly used in . the primitive ages of . the New and through . all succeeding peri - ods of Christian churches , has not been a superfluous and erroneous economy ! Perhaps the public ministry , among the Friends , was

    never so important as to have rightly superseded the use of such sacred readings ; but for many years past , it has been an obvious fact , that the ministry amons

    them has been on the decline , and that ifc is now at a very low ebb indeed ! . . They frequently sit together , wholly in silence , or hear incoherent addresses from

    some of the weakest of their wellmeaning fraternity . They have young and uninformed persons among them , who need the awakening aid of public ' admonition in the important concerns of the Christian religion : and why will they continue to forego the use of an aid to devotion , so ready , so influential in quietening devotional feelings , and so much sanctioned by the wisdom and piety of all formeV ages ? Far be it from me to suppose that a large proportion of the society are not frequently edified in silent

    meditation or , to use their own language , in silent waiting for the spiritual influence which they profess to deem essential in true worship . But the solemn reading of suitable portions of sacred writ ,

    would , sureiy , be no impediment to general edification . It might be useful to the most deeply experienced , and incalculably so to the inexperienced , especially the

    g generation . These thoughts are ndt published in a censorious disposition towards the respectable body 4

    Untitled Article

    160 On tlie Quakers * Yearly Epistle *

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1811, page 160, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2414/page/32/