If a bad law, or the repeal of a good one, be proposed, every one
present, without distinction, has a right to speak against the motion.
The proposition cannot pass against the sense of the meeting. If persons
are not present, it is their own fault. Thus it happens that every law,
passed at the yearly meeting, may be considered, in some measure, as the
law of every Quaker's own will, and people are much more likely to
follow regulations made by their own consent, than those which are made
against it. This therefore has unquestionably an operation as a second
cause. A third may be traced in the peculiar sentiments, which the
Quakers hold as a religious body. They believe that many of their
members, when they deliver themselves publicly on any subject at the
yearly meeting, are influenced by the dictates of the pure principle, or
by the spirit of truth. Hence the laws of the society, which are
considered to be the result of such influences, have with them the
sanction of spiritual authority. They pay them therefore a greater
deference on this account, than they would to laws, which they conceive
to have been the production of the mere imagination, or will, of man.
CHAP. V.
_Disowning--foundation of the right of disowning--disowning no slight
punishment--wherein the hardship or suffering consists_.
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