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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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%% Quakers Yearly Epistle \ - c ¦ ¦ ¦ . -. ¦ v <
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< c make his remarks , and nothing c < can , stand but the sense of the % c Meeting ?* This statement , for which no doubt Thomas Clarkson ^ when he wrote and published it , had * proper authority , without one syllable to
intimate any occasional departure from the practice it describes , renders it the more necessary pubi licly to notice ^ how widely it was departed from in the instance I have mentioned . ' For otherwise , some years hence ^ this very pas ^
sage may be quoted as presumptive evidence , of a genera ] , nay An almost unanimous concurrence of an Assembly , consisting of not less than a thousand persons , in erroneous doctrine , after the ' most
minute and careful examination of the paper containing it " sentence by sentence ?* Even where a free discussion
has taken place , on any question , c < before the Yearly Meeting at large , " Thomas Clarkson tells us , p # 240 , it is decided , not by the influence of numbers , but by the weight vf religious character " On this I shall only observe , that a different mode seems to have prevailed in the primitive Christian Church . The Apostle Peter doubtless possessed such a character in an eminent degree ; and
yet we find that Paul , who was a persecutor long after Peter was a disciple , withstood him" at Antioch , C 4 td the face , because h 6 was to be Warned . " That is , cc he walked not upjightly , according to the truth bf the Gospel , " by attempting to lay burthens upon the Gentile con . verts , which their common Master had no where enjoined See Gal , ii . 11—44 .
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But adds Clarkson , As most C 6 subjects afford cause for a dif-( C 4 C ference of opinion , so the C Quakers at this Meeting are u Found taking their different
sides of the argument as they cc believe it right , lliose , how-4 C ever , who are in opposition ta u any measure , if they perceive , u by the turn the debate takes , * ' either that they are going u against the general will , or that
" they are opposing the senti * cc rnents of rnembers of high CQ moral reputation in the Sd » iC ciety 5 give way . And so far cc do the Quakers carry their " condescension on these'
occau sions ^ that if a few ancient and iC respectable individuals , sfeem to C 4 be dissatisfied with any meau sure that may have been pro . " posed , though otherwise re . lC spectably supported , the rneaic sure is frequently postponed ,
cc out of tenderness to the feelings ' of such members and from a CQ desire of gaining them in time * by fbrbeai ^ ance / Bvit in
what-4 C ever way the question before ** them is settled , no division is cc ever called for . J ?* o counting C 6 of numbers is allotted . No cc protest is stfffered to be en * " tered . " \
On these principles , however commendable within certain K » mils condescension one towards another may be , it is obvious , that what may sometimes pass as " the sense of the Meeting , * may differ widely from th . e sense of the
ipajority of its members . And although I am not warranted in deciding what alterations would have been made in the last Yearly Epistle , had it undergone the usual examination , I am strongly
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1811, page 22, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2412/page/22/
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