xix THE RULES OF DISCIPLINE 255 



William Cookworthy pleasantly styled them " the Sibylline 

 leaves." In 1762, after the Visitation Committee's 

 labours, these MS. volumes were brought up to date ; 

 fresh copies were made, and a Book of Extracts was also 

 printed by John Fry in the same year. Later the Yearly 

 Meeting itself took in hand to make a more complete 

 collection of its minutes, dealing in alphabetical order 

 with the various topics of church practice and with the 

 treatment of delinquencies. Dr. Fothergill took a large 

 share in this work during the last years of his life, though 

 he did not live to see the volume published in the year 

 1783, under the title of " Extracts from the Minutes and 

 Advices of the Yearly Meeting of Friends held in London 

 from its first institution." It came to be known as the 

 Rules of Discipline, and was the precursor through some 

 eight editions of the Book of Christian Discipline, issued 

 in 1911, which is in use in London Yearly Meeting to-day. 

 It is true that this synopsis of church precept and order 

 did not include, and never has done so, any confession 

 of faith or doctrine such as is usual in other religious 

 bodies ; minutes and extracts from Epistles issued by the 

 Yearly Meeting, and one or two notable letters written 

 by George Fox, sufficiently representing the doctrinal 

 principles of the society. But it defined the application 

 of these principles to the affairs of life, and in this way 

 crystallised the approved practices of Friends into a set 

 form. Its authors might have pondered the words of a 

 founder of the Dunker sect, who said that that body, not 

 being sure that they had arrived at the perfection of 

 spiritual knowledge, feared to print their doctrines, lest 

 they should become unwilling to receive further light, 

 and lest their successors should conceive what their elders 

 had done to be something sacred, never to be departed 

 from. 1 



The influence of Fothergill seems to have been given, 

 in common with that of his contemporaries, to perfect 

 this process of methodising and organising his religious 

 society. It is remarkable that he never applied to 



1 Franklin, Autobiog. ch. viii. 



