18.v.

17.] The observations, which I shall make on the subject of disowning, will be wholly confined to it as it must operate as a source of suffering to those, who are sentenced to undergo it.

People are apt to say, "where is the hardship of being disowned?
a man, though disowned by the Quakers, may still go to their meetings for worship, or he may worship if he chooses, with other dissenters, or with those of the church of England, for the doors of all places of worship are open to those, who desire to enter them." I shall state therefore in what this hardship consists, and I should have done it sooner, but that I could never have made it so well understood as after an explanation had been given of the discipline of the Quakers, or as in the present place.
There is no doubt that a person, who is disowned, will be differently affected by different considerations.

Something will depend upon the circumstance, whether he considers himself as disowned for a moral or a political offence.

Something, again, whether he has been in the habit of attending the meetings for discipline, and what estimation he may put upon these.
But whether he has been regular or not in these attendances, it is certain that he has a power and a consequence, while he remains in his own society, which he loses when he leaves it, or when he becomes a member of the world.