(106) CORRESPONDENCE ON THE BELPER CONFERENCE, Addressed to the Editor of The British Friend," BY "A MEMBER OF THE CONFERENCE," SAMUEL EVENS, IN REPLY TO J. J., OF PRESTON, AND JOS. S. SEWELL, A MADAGASCAR MISSIONARY. WITH INTRODUCTORY REMARKS, AND NOTES AND ADDENDUM. MANCHESTER: WILLIAM IRWIN, CATHEDRAL CHAMBERS, HALF-STREET. Price 4d. Post Free; 25/- per Hundred. C. 8343.770.15 FRIENDS LIBRARY, 142 N. SIXTEENTH ST. PHILADELPHIA, PA. HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY HAVERFORD COLLEGE LIBRARY M INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. TH HE Original Christian Principles, and the Practices depending upon them," as professed by the Society of Friends, being, as William Penn averred, " Primitive Christianity revived," are necessarily immutable, and cannot be suppressed by all the hostile forces arrayed against them, whether such be within or without the camp! Eventually the Standard of Truth will be held aloft by faithful standardbearers-"good soldiers of Jesus Christ "-from the ranks of that immense army of "the Friends of Truth," who will flock together "from the east, and from the west, and from the north, and from the south!" The gathering together of this "innumerable company," will be under a fresh outpouring of the Spirit. Even as the Early Friends were drawn into Christian fellowship to bear a joint testimony for "the Truth as it is in Jesus,"-"not by constraint or worldly respect, but by the mere force of Truth upon their understandings, and its power and influence upon their hearts,"- -so will the future Church of the Society of Friends be gathered. The Christian Profession of this Society did not originate by the decisions of any General Council convened for that object. The Yearly Meeting being the offspring of that body, long after its organization upon a definite and declared profession of Faith and Practice, could not be the parent of that profession, as some ignorantly, and others perversely, affirm, by their assuming that the power is vested in it to modify, or radically change it, as the majority may decide. The functions of the Yearly Meeting, as originally established, were all of a conservative character. Whatever tended to preserve or promote its original faith and practice, and the faithful upholding thereof by its professors, within the limitations of its place in the body, it might and ought to do; but it had no prerogative of power to even initiate fundamental changes. Robert Barclay says, in his "Anarchy of the Ranters,' "Now I say, we being gathered together into the belief of certain principles and doctrines, without any constraint or worldly respect, but by the mere force of truth upon our understandings, and its power and influence upon our hearts; these principles and doctrines, and the practices necessarily depending upon them are, as it were, the terms that have drawn us together, and the bond by which we became centred in one body and fellowship, and distinguished from others." It is therefore a manifest usurpation of power-not conferred upon it by any clause of its constitution—for the Yearly Meeting to be the agent, directly |