APPENDIX, CONTAINING A COMPARISON OF SOME OF THE DOCTRINAL VIEWS OF J.J. GURNEY, WITH THOSE OF SEVERAL STANDARD WRITERS AMONG THE EARLY FRIENDS, AND SEVERAL TESTIMONIES AND LETTERS RELATIVE TO THE DOCTRINES AND CONDITION OF THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS.

[14: MORAL SENSE, ETC., PAGES 313-315]
John Wilbur

Wilbur, John. A Narrative and Exposition of the Late Proceedings of New England Yearly Meeting, With Some of its Subordinate Meetings & Their committees, in Relation to the Doctrinal Controversy Now Existing in the Society of Friends: Prefaced by a Concise View of the Church, Showing the Occasion of its Apostacy, both Under the Former and Present Dispensations, With an Appendix. Edited from Record Kept, From Time to Time, of Those Proceedings, and Interspersed With Occasional Remarks and Observations. Addressed to the Members of the Said Yearly Meeting. New York: Piercy & Reed, Printers, 1854, pages 277-325.(All italics added by J.W. for emphasis. All words supplied in [Square Brackets] by J.W.
Page numbers from original publication by -pds in {Set Brackets.}

This Document is on The Quaker Writings Home Page.


J.J. Gurney (Essays, p. 365.) "It will, I presume, be without difficulty allowed, that these observations are in a general, yet very important sense, applicable to all men, whether they are partakers in the benefit of an outward revelation, or are left to that which is usually described as the light of nature. If we admit that mankind, without an outward revelation, are nevertheless sinners, we must also admit that mankind without such a revelation, are nevertheless in possession of the law of God; for we are expressly told by one apostle, that 'where no law is, there is no transgression;' (Rom. iv. 15.) and by another, that sin is tho transgression of the law; (I John iii. 4.) declarations which obviously correspond with tho dictates of sound reason.
"The law to which I now allude and which is universally bestowed upon men, is that moral sense of right and wrong, by which the natural conscience is directed and illuminated, and which, unless perverted by prejudice, or seared by the fatal operation of vice, it never fails to bear witness."*
 

*"For my own part, I beg it may be understood, that 'by the light of nature,' I mean, simply, the light which God has communicated to the souls of men independently of on outwardly revealed religion."--Note, at p. 365 and 366.

J.J. Gurnry (Strictures on "Truth Vindicated," p. 25.): "To denominate our Lord Jesus Christ a Rule, as does this author in the last mentioned extract, involves the danger of a very fatal heresy; it obviously tends to divest him of his personality, and to convert him into a principle.
"In the mean time, the author of the Truth Vindicated(1), does not hesitate to insinuate that without any instruction whatsoever in Christianity, every creature {p. 314} under heaven may have the saving knowledge of the 'gospel of life and salvation through Jesus Christ.'"
(Essays, p. 361.) "Prone to iniquity, and transgressors from the womb, we are alienated from God, who is the source of all happiness; and, in the world to come, eternal separation from him, and, therefore, eternal misery is the consequence of our evil doings."
(Portable Evidencee p. 165.) "In himself indeed, as a transgressor fresh his birth, he is vile and polluted, but by the blood of Jesus sprinked on his heart, his conscience is purged from every dead work; and having obtained an interest in the Saviour of men, he wears a robe of righteousness in which there is no spot."

Robert Barclay (Apol. Prop.V. & VI. p. 177.): "And certainly hence it is, evell because this light seed and grace that appears in the heart of mad is so little regarded, and so much overlooked, that so few know Christ brought forth in them."
(p. 178.) "Some will have it to be reason; some, a natural conscience; some, certain reliques of God's image that remained in Adam. So that Christ, as He met with opposition from all kinds of professors in his outward appearance, doth now also in the inward."
(ibid. p, 182.) "It [the saving grace] testifies that it is no natural principle or light, but saith plainly, it brings salvation.
(ibid. Prop. XI. p. 382.) "For we must cease to do evil, ere we learn to do well; and this meddling in things spiritual by man's own natural understanding, is one of the greatest and most dangerous evils that man is incident to; being that which occasioned our first parents' fall, to wit, a forwardness to desire to know things, and a meddling with them, both without and contrary to the Lord's command."
(ibid. Prop. I.V.p. 95.) "Nevertheless, this seed is not imputed to infants, until by transgression they actually join themselves therewith; for they are by nature the children of wrath, who walk according to the power of the prince of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience, having their {p. 315} conversation in the lusts of the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and the mind."
(ibid. p. 104.) "Than which testimonies there is nothing more positive; since to infants there is no law, seeing as such they are utterly incapable of it; the law cannot reach any but such as have in some measure less or more the exercise of their understanding, which infants have not."
Phipps (Original and Present State of Man, p. 32,): "All the personal instructions and writings of the prophets, apostles, and theircotemporaries, taken in their full extent, have never been any thing near so univelsal amongst mankind as this grace and power-of God; for it always hath been, and is present to every individual iu all nations and throughout all generations."
 

Next: The Anointing--Christ in Man


1. Author alluded to unknown at this time. -pds