The following is the entire text of this leaflet:
Message to the Membership of Ohio Yearly Meeting
At a session of the Meeting of Ministers and Elders of Ohio Yearly Meeting of Friends, held the 28th day of Eighth Month, 1931.
"We were dipped into a concern for the spiritual growth and preservation, not only for ourselves, but also of our membership at large.
"This exercise resulted in the preparation of the accompanying document which was directed sent to the Yearly Meeting.
– J. Howard Edgerton, Clerk."
Issued by Ohio Yearly Meeting of Friends, 1931.
To the members collectively and individually throughout the Yearly Meeting.
Dear Friends:
It is in a measure, we believe, of that love which would gather into one, all the family and flock of God the world over that we feel drawn to salute you.
This may seem a high profession, but is no more than the Gospel of the dear Son of God, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, calls for, as exemplified in His intercessory prayer when on earth for His immediate followers and those who should believe in Him through their word.
Although often baptised into a sense of our weakness and unworthiness; yet through this humiliation, our eyes have been opened to behold the glory and virtue to which the dispensation of God's Providence does call; certainly a powerful inducement to the believer to endure the cross, despising whatever shame there is to bear for His name. This oneness of spirit and exercise in the Truth is, we hope and trust, the aspiration of every soul whose face is set Zionward.
How necessary then it is for each one to lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset that we might run with patience the race set before us in the Gospel.
Some believe it requires study and research into the lives and experiences of the righteous in former times to understand the will of the Lord regarding us. The promise of God through the prophet concerning the New Covenant to succeed the Mosaic law, which was a clear prophecy of the Gospel of Christ, was full and free, written upon the fleshly table of the heart. By it, the necessity of the intervention of man was removed, in the salvation of his fellows. "They shall not teach every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, 'know the Lord,' for all shall know me from the least to the greatest."
But ere this was to come to pass, God sent his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin condemned sin in the flesh that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in the followers of Christ, who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit.
Although thus individually provided for, yet as men and women yield to the power of God thus inwardly revealed, they are cleansed and purified, becoming instructed more and more in the things pertaining to the kingdom of God, as they are able to bear and receive it, till they are fitted and qualified for service in whatever sphere the Head of the Church may in His wisdom see meet.
So we may see it is God in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them. Surely such as experience this reconciliation can bless God and be prepared to adopt the language of the Psalmist when he said, 'What shall I render unto the Lord for all His benefits toward me; I will take up the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord; I will pay my vows unto the Lord now in the presence of all His people.' O, this cup of salvation, how much it does mean, yes, dear Friends of all ages, who have been reached by His grace, let us be willing to drink of the cup that He drank of and be baptised with the baptism which He was baptised with that we may truly become His disciples.
Then shall we experience the enmity to be slain and the love of God which passeth knowledge to dwell in our hearts through which we shall rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing, and in everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning us. |
