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88 Dr. John Walker on the Quahers' u Min...
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Bond ' Court, Walbrook, Friend, 3rd of 1...
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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.
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Clapham, Sir, January 4, 1819» Presume T...
private opinion is allowed to come forWard as a well-established truth , and to take its place among Christian doctrines , then I think we are obnoxious to a heavy responsibility .
We are solemnly and repeatedly warned against adding any thing to the word of God , as well as against taking any thing from it . I know not how any reasonable answer can be given to this objection , considered in a practical point of view . Here is a
distinct addition made to the gospel , yea , and one which is practically in opposition to its declarations . For is there not a great difference between the practical impression of preaching universal restitution , and leaving as OUr Master did , tingling in men ' s ears such sentences as these : " The wicked
shall go away into everlasting punishment : " All that are in the graves shall arise , they that have done good unto the resurrection of life , and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of condemnation" ? Such are the
remotest views which Jesus gave of human destiny . It is evident enough that the preaching of final restitution is as it were muffling his words in his mouth . Suppose then that our Lord should now send a message to our Unitarian church , as once he did to those of Asia , with the solemn address
** I know thy works : " Should we not be reproached with preaching another gospel which he had not preached ? Good God I I would not bear this responsibility for the world . Now in all this , the objection is not that our doctrine is false , but that we
presume to blend our own opinions with the gospel ; that we preach what we have not been sent to preach . But perhaps it will be said that if the doctrine is true , there can be no
objection to proclaiming it . But not to mention the presumption of which we have been speaking , it is very possible that a thing may be true , and yet not proper to be revealed . The poet well observes :
" Heaven from all creatures hides the book of Fate , AH but the page prescribed , tbeir present state . " It may be extremely mischievous for mankind to be told their destinies beforehand . It seems to be generally thought that it is so . Calvinism and Fatalkm have been decried and ex-
Clapham, Sir, January 4, 1819» Presume T...
ploded on that account . Yet this doctrine , what is it but Calvinism and Fatalism in a new form ? Their essence is the same , the same their tendency . Man is taught to behold his inevitable destinv as fixed from
the beginning ; and that not in the counsel and foreknowledge © f God , but in his own foreknowledge . Thus , whatever be his present conduct , his ultimate state cannot be affected . This new form of Calvinism is worse than
the old , because in this every individual sees his own destiny , which in that is not the case . Thus is the most absolute Fatalism become a favourite sentiment of the body that ought to be the most philosophical
and enlightened of Christians . I have read a remark on this subject , with which I will close . " After all , this style of preaching bears too much resemblance to that old delusion , * Ye shall not surely die . EUELPIS .
88 Dr. John Walker On The Quahers' U Min...
88 Dr . John Walker on the Quahers' u Minutes" ~
Bond ' Court, Walbrook, Friend, 3rd Of 1...
Bond ' Court , Walbrook , Friend , 3 rd of 1 st Mo . 1819 . IN the papers I have addressed to thee , from time to time , on the subject of the Quakers , it must have appeared that their doctrine of the
necessity of waiting . in silence for divine influence , in their religious meetings , ( observance also of the sect of Seekers before the gathering of the Quakers into an organized society , ) is by me regarded as the ne plus ultra of reformation from all the systems of professed worship that have ever
existed . In their meetings of business they also , sometimes , appear to wait in the same devoted way for divine aid or instruction ; but , oh ! how bbvious are the workings of evil which have prevailed in their assemblies from time to time , as may appear in their epistles annually issued , in due form , from their Yearly Meetings .
I have now their " Books of Extracts" from the minutes of the London yearly meetings before me , and go to make selection of some of the parts which can never have been issued from a right spirit . Thy giving
them a place in the Repository , will obtain them an extension through a part of society that does not consider , like ftobert Barclay , & c . what the proniulgators of them " bind oto &« rth to be bound in heaven : what they
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 22, 1819, page 88, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/mrp_22021819/page/20/
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