People are apt to say, "where is
the hardship of being disowned? a man, though disowned by the Quakers,
may still go to their meetings for worship, or he may worship if he
chooses, with other dissenters, or with those of the church of England,
for the doors of all places of worship are open to those, who desire to
enter them." I shall state therefore in what this hardship consists, and
I should have done it sooner, but that I could never have made it so
well understood as after an explanation had been given of the discipline
of the Quakers, or as in the present place.
There is no doubt that a person, who is disowned, will be differently
affected by different considerations. Something will depend upon the
circumstance, whether he considers himself as disowned for a moral or a
political offence. Something, again, whether he has been in the habit of
attending the meetings for discipline, and what estimation he may put
upon these.
But whether he has been regular or not in these attendances, it is
certain that he has a power and a consequence, while he remains in his
own society, which he loses when he leaves it, or when he becomes a
member of the world. The reader will have already observed, that in no
society is a man, if I may use the expression, so much of a man, as in
that of the Quakers, or in no society is there such an equality of rank
and privileges.
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