Hence the laws of the society, which are considered to be the result of such influences, have with them the sanction of spiritual authority.

They pay them therefore a greater deference on this account, than they would to laws, which they conceive to have been the production of the mere imagination, or will, of man.
CHAP.

V.
_Disowning--foundation of the right of disowning--disowning no slight punishment--wherein the hardship or suffering consists_.
I shall conclude the discipline of the Quakers by making a few remarks on the subject of disowning.
The Quakers conceive they have a right to excommunicate or disown; because persons, entering into any society, have a right to make their own reasonable rules of membership, and so early as the year 1663, this practice had been adopted by George Fox, and those who were in religious union with him.

Those, who are born in the society, are bound of course, to abide by these rules, while they continue to be the rules of the general will, or to leave it.

Those who come into it by convincement, are bound to follow them, or not to sue for admission into membership.
This right of disowning, which arises from the reasonableness of the thing, the Quakers consider to have been pointed out and established by the author of the christian religion, who determined that [34]if a disorderly person, after having received repeated admonitions, should still continue disorderly, he should be considered as an alien by the church.
[Footnote 34: Matt.