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ENOX LIBR

NEW YORK

PREFACE.

A PAMPHLET has recently made its appearance in this city, entitled "The Sandy Foundation Shaken, &c. by Wm. Penn, to which are added, Extracts from the writings of divers of our primitive Friends on the Divinity of Christ, Atonement, the Scriptures, &c.;" the obvious intention of which, is to make it appear, that the worthy founders of the Society of Friends, concurred with the Socinians and modern Unitarians, in denying these important doctrines of the Christian religion.

It is now incontrovertibly established by the writings, as well as the public preaching of Elias Hicks, that he denies the miraculous conception, and the divinity of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; the virtue of that most satisfactory sacrifice for sin, which he made of himself upon the cross, without the gates of Jerusalem, and likewise the authenticity, genuineness, and authority of the Holy Scriptures of Truth. His adherents being no longer able to deny these charges, nor to screen him, by saying that he is misunderstood; are now attempting to prove, that in thus rejecting some of the most important and precious doctrines of the Christian religion, he does no more than was done by the early Quakers.

This was a task not to be performed without much labour and contrivance-full and fair quotations would not answer their purpose, but prove the contrary of that which they wished to establish, and therefore the compilers of this pamphlet, have resorted to the disingenuous stratagem of mutilating, altering, and grossly perverting the language and obvious meaning of the authors, whose writings they quote. In the following pages we shall bring ample proof of the validity of these charges, and show that they have committed acts of great injustice towards those worthy men, whose names they have adduced, to sanction doctrines which they declared they never held nor owned. Our present remarks will be confined to the contradictions and misrepresentations contained in their preface.

It is a truth established by long experience, that not only a frequent recurrence, but also a firm adherence, to its original principles, is essentially necessary to the preservation of every religious society. But in order to realize the advantages of this important truth, it is absolutely necessary for the members of every such society, to be able to determine, what those ori

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