THE BALBY EPISTLE

The elders who assembled at Balby, in the north of England, in 1656 wrote twenty "advices," which included the first detailed directions about what to do in certain circumstances such as when "any person draw back from meetings and walk disorderly." Their epistle, which follows, prepared the ground for later books of discipline.

To help us understand something of our heritage, this book of discipline contains this early statement of Friends' principles. Yet it is important to re-examine these advices in the Light as we know it and to restate them freshly in the language of today. There will continue to be revisions of our discipline so that the words of this volume and the rewordings of future times serve the same spirit and reinterpret the same truth.

ADVICES FROM THE ELDERS AT BALBY

1. The settled meetings to be kept each first-day. General Meetings, as a rule to be on some other day of the week.

2. As any are brought in to the Truth new meetings are to be arranged to suit the general convenience, without respect of persons.

3. Persons ceasing to attend meetings are to be spoken to. Persons who walk disorderly are to be spoken to in private, then before two or three witnesses; then, if necessary, the matter is to be reported to the Church. The Church is to reprove them for their disorderly walking, and, if they do not reform, the case is to be sent in writing "to some whom the Lord hath raised up in the power of the Spirit of the Lord to be fathers, -- His children to gather in the light" so that the thing may be known to the body and be determined in the light.

4. Ministers to speak the word of the Lord from the mouth of the Lord, without adding or diminishing. If anything is spoken out of the light so that "the seed of God" comes to be burdened, it is to be dealt with in private and not in the public meetings, "except there be a special moving to do so."

5. Collections to be made for the poor, the relief of prisoners, and other necessary uses, the moneys to be carefully accounted for, and applied as made known by the overseers in each meeting.

6. Care to be taken "for the families and goods of such as are called forth in the ministry, or are imprisoned for the Truth's sake; that no creature be lost for want of caretakers."

7. Intentions of marriage to be made known to the Children of Light, especially those of the meeting where the parties are members. The marriage to be solemnized in the fear of the Lord, and before many witnesses, after the