On this page
-
Text (3)
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
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.
-
-
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
Tci&n Methodism and their converts " that do not like to hear the ' Sandy Foundation Shaken' mentioned . " I happen to know , however , many others , and some that stand high in the
estimation of their brethren for orthodoxy , who fully approve this tract , and have openly professed to do so subsequent to my excommunication for holding the tenets it so plainly and strongly
inculcates . From the last article of your Review of Books , ( p . 46 , ) it seems as if it was no longer deemed expedient to call forth the puny thunders of the Quaker church against a member who lias presumed to publish Remarks on a Yearly Meeting Epistle . This
some of your readers will recollect was the front and forehead of my offending . But now a more moderate species of Ci dealing" is pursued , not an exercise of church power , but merely an anonymous Letter " upon the danger of doubting and the mischiefs of controversy /'
I am rather curious to see how this writer aims , on such an occasion , to establish these two cardinal points , as they are deemed by the advocates for Popish infallibility , and hope soon to see both the Letters .
The caution in the Epistle cannot , I am persuaded , have been approved by many of the persons present , and especially by the most intelligent part of the assembly , including the ministers and elders . The plan , indeed , upon which the sense of the
meetingis supposed to be ascertained , is well contrived to enable a very few persons in a large meeting to decide for and in the name of the rest , though it may be in direct opposition to the opinions ° f a great majority . No show of hands , no division , no counting of numbers , is allowed .
I have , nevertheless , pleasure in assuring you , that since I was disowned , I have had much reason to believe that the all-cheering and consolatory doctrines of the essential placability and the simple , undivided unity of the one only true God , the fat
her , is still making its way among the youth and middle-aged members of the Society in a greater degree than at an I former time within my memory $ and think the caution ia the Epistle indicates an apprehension in the minds ot its proposers that this was the fact ,
Untitled Article
much more than it does their knowing how to apply any adequate remedy to the imaginary evil . Its natural effect on the very class of persons to whom it is addressed , is to excite such of
them as dare to think for themselves , and have caught any thing of the spirit of the apostolic precept , iC Prove all things , " to persevere in that track , and especially in the forbidden
direction , that they may gain the apostolic prize , and " hold fast that which is good" Wishing them success in- this honourable course , I am sincerely yours ,
THOMAS FOSTER . P . S . Some months ago , meeting Josiah Forster , of Southgate , the Clerk , 'or more properly the Chairman of the last Yearly Meeting , I thought it right and friendlv to call his attention to the article in " The Christian
Reformer , " ( Vol . VI . p . 307 , ) very suitably entitled " Quakers' dread of Books . " I informed him I did not at all know by whom the article was written or sent to that work . He admitted having seen it soon after it was published , but made no comment
on its contents , saying , however , that he only signed it officially as Clerk of the Meeting . In confirmation of the statement by one of your correspondents , ( XV . 716 , ) I will add an extract of a letter from
one of mine , whom I much esteem ; he is also a much-respected member of the Society of Friends . It is dated " 20 of 12 mo . [ Dec- ] 1820 . " The writer says , " A Friend attacked me warmly a few days ago , but , after a little conversation , he admitted that
God was the only proper object of religious worship , and that Jesus Christ was subordinate to him . I then told him , that was the grand fundamental doctrine of Unitarians . ' O /
says he , * if that be what thou callest Unitarian ism , I believe the whole of the Society of Friends , or nearly so , may in that sense be called Unitarians . *"
Untitled Article
Remarks on the Quakers' Yearly Epistle , 153
Untitled Article
Bristol , 2 nd Mo . 15 , 1821 . Respected Friend , AM happy to find that the intole-I rant , inquisitorial and restrictive proceedings of our Friends are meeting with that public censure which they so justly deserve . I was born , and edu-
Untitled Article
VOL . XVI . X
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1821, page 153, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2498/page/25/
-