Another section of the 19th-century discipline, the basic
material being drawn from the 1806 Philadelphia YM edition.
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                         DAYS AND TIMES

Some reasons for not observing fasts and feast days and times,
     and other human injunctions and institutions relative to the
     worship of God.

        EVER since we were a people we have had a testimony
against formal worship, being convinced by the precepts of our
Lord Jesus Christ, the testimonies of his apostles, and our own
experience, that the worship and prayers which God accepts, are
such only as are produced by the influence and assistance of his
holy Spirit; we cannot therefore consistently unite with any in
the observation of public fasts, feasts, and what they term holy
days; or such injunctions and forms as are devised in man's will
for divine worship; the dispensation to which outward
observations were peculiar, having long since given place to the
spiritual dispensation of the gospel, we believe the fast we are
now called to is not the bowing of the head like a bulrush for a
day, but an universal and continual fasting and refraining from
every thing which has a tendency to defile the soul and unfit it
for becoming the temple of the Holy Ghost, according to the
injunctions of Christ to his primitive disciples, "If any man
will come after me, let him take up his daily cross and follow
me.  Watch ye therefore and pray always, that ye may be accounted
worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to
stand before the Son of Man."  That the primitive believers saw
an end to these shadows of good things, by coming to Him in whom
all figures and shadows end, is evident by the words of the
apostle Paul; "For Christ, said he, is the end of the law for
righteousness to every one that believeth," Rom. 10:4.--"But now
hath he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he
is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon
better promises." Heb. 8:6.  "Let no man therefore judge you in
meat or drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon,
or of the sabbath days, which are a shadow of things to come, but
the body is of Christ." Col. 2:16-17.  And the same apostle thus
expostulated with some who it appears had fallen from the true
faith in these respects, "But now after that ye have known God,
how turn ye again to the beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire
again to be in bondage.  Ye observe days and months, and times,
and years: I am afraid of you lest I have bestowed upon you
labour in vain" Gal. 4:9-11.
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[A later Orthodox discipline adds 3 paragraphs to this section,
beginning with the following:]

        Advised that Friends be exemplary in keeping to our
ancient testimony against the superstitious observation of days;
and to the simplicity of Truth in calling the days and months by
Scripture names, and not by those of the heathen. 1691, 1697

[This is followed by the material printed above, which is then
followed by another 2 paragraphs, as below:]

        As we do not find any ground in Scripture for it, we
cannot be so superstitious as to believe, that either the Jewish
sabbath now continues, or that the first day of the week is the
anti-type thereof, or the true Christian sabbath; which we
believe has a more spiritual sense and signification; and
therefore we know no moral obligation by the fourth command or
elsewhere, to keep the first day of the week more than any other,
or that there is any holiness inherent in it.  But as we believe
the Apostles and primitive Christians did meet on this day to
worship God, so we, following their example, do the like, and
forbear working or engaging in our worldly affairs upon that day. =

Works of charity or Christian benevolence, such as visiting and
administering to the sick and afflicted; or occasions of
unavoidable necessity may sometimes interfere with, or occasion a
deviation from the strict adherence to the uses and services to
which this day is specially appropriated; yet it is our continued
concern affectionately to recommend to all our members, that,
abstaining from bodily labor on that day, they observe and regard
it as a day which by the generality of Christians is peculiarly
set apart for religious retirement, and the performance of public
worship to Almighty God. - 1834.
        Being well assured that the edifying practice of
frequently collecting our children and families, in order for
religious retirement, would be promotive of essential benefit,
Friends are exhorted to seek after a right qualification, under
which they may be enabled to maintain it, especially in the
afternoon of the first day of the week, in such places where
meetings for public worship are not held at that time; the due
discharge of which duty, and solidly reading the Holy Scriptures
and other religious books, with a steady, watchful care over our
young people, to discourage their visiting and rambling about on
that day, and mixing with unprofitable company at this and at
other times, would, under the Divine blessing, be a means of
their preservation out of many ensnaring temptations, to which
they are liable. - 1834.
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Next week: DEFAMATION AND DETRACTION

Licia Kuenning
Friends of Truth/Glenside Friends Meeting