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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Common Sense by Thomas Paine: To God, and not to man, are all men accountable on the score of religion.
Wherefore, this epistle is not so properly addressed to you as a religious,
but as a political body, dabbling in matters, which the professed Quietude
of your Principles instruct you not to meddle with. As you have, without
a proper authority for so doing, put yourselves in the place of the whole body
of the Quakers, so, the writer of this, in order to be on an equal rank
with yourselves, is under the necessity, of putting himself in the place
of all those, who, approve the very writings and principles, against which,
your testimony is directed: And he hath chosen this singular situation,
in order, that you might discover in him that presumption of character
which you cannot see in yourselves. For neither he nor you can have any
Common Sense |
