preacher, scattering one doctrine here, and another there; and interlarding your discourses with bold assertions, which are remembered, when the prolix and visionary distinctions by which you attempt to qualify them are forgotten.

I remember hearing an individual who had attended at a meeting in the vicinity of Philadelphia, at which you preached, when asked what was the subject of your discourse, reply, that you preached very comfortable doctrine for some of the company, for you had assured them there was no devil. I am not so uncharitable as to believe that you are intentionally instrumental in removing the salutary restraints upon the vices of man; and yet I am surprised that you do not perceive the inevitable and pernicious consequences of such declarations; and that, if you do not believe in the authority of the Scriptures yourself, you do not avoid assertions which, while they can have no tendency to strengthen and encourage the pious mind, must necessarily diminish those feelings of future responsibility which, awful as they are, unhappily are not sufficient to restrain the wickedness of

Many to whom you preach are illiterate, and without capacity to investigate your doctrines and their tendency. They have been accustomed to listen to the simple truths of our religion, enforced in language which they can understand; and they often found in their attendance at places of worship, consolation, instruction, and encouragement. They have been taught to believe in the revelations unfolded in the sacred volume, and to look forward with the cheering hope, of a Mediator and Redeemer, "who ever liveth to make intercession for them."t

These are the lessons of practical piety, which bring the mind into a situation to worship acceptably, and under the influence of which, men but little instructed in human learning, are often enabled to counsel the wise of this world in the things that lead to their peace.

But if these things are all to be changed: if in place of this

* If the reader wishes to know what Elias Hicks says on this subject, let nim peruse the Sermons, pages 37, 163, 166, 170, 182, and 293, and he will there have a fair specimen of the darkness which surrounds him-a cloud of words unilluminated by a ray of light.

Hebrews, chap. vii.

simple, practical religion, our places of worship are to be converted into theatres for metaphysical disquisitions, and the discussion of questions more curious than useful; and we are to be instructed in the unprofitable controversies which have so long perplexed and disturbed the christian world: if faith is no longer a christian principle, and the revelations of the scriptures rejected when not to be arrived at by the analogy of reason, then indeed must the Quaker ministry be constituted anew, and even your own labours cease. The old and unchanged servants can take no part or portion in the new order of things; and it cannot be expected that the disciples of the new school will take for a master to lead them to the truth by analogous reasoning, one, who has yet to be taught what reason really is.

LETTER IX.

Your assertion that "you cannot believe what you do not un"derstand," is often quoted by your followers, as a proof of your having emancipated yourself from the thraldom of tradition, and risen superior to those prejudices, which early education, and the authority of antiquity have fastened on the minds of men; and yet when we examine and compare this assertion with the doctrines you inculcate, it appears evident that you have not a correct idea of the meaning of your favourite maxim.

This understanding can only be arrived at by the natural faculties of perception, judgment, and reasoning, and as the truth of the especial revelations of which you speak, are propositions which cannot be demonstrated by the use of these faculties; they must, if assented to, be purely matters of faith, arising from our belief in the general truth of the christian dispensation.

There is a clear distinction between things which are according to, above, and contrary to, reason. The first are propositions, the truth of which may be discovered by the use of the ideas we have acquired from sensation and reflection. The second are propositions whose truth cannot be investigated by these means: and

the third, such as are inconsistent and irreconcileable to our clear and distinct ideas.

Thus, were you to tell us, that without other impulse than your own will, you can give mobility to matter, and at your pleasure reduce it to a quiescent state, we cannot withhold our assent, because we see you exercising that dominion in the government of your limbs; and yet so far from understanding the operation of this wonderful power, the mind cannot form the least idea how the effect is produced. But when we hear you declare to one set of people" that the law of the spirit of life in one, is not the law "of the spirit of life in his brother; and that each individual re"quires a peculiar law to himself;"* and to another, "that this "divine law which is written by the finger of God upon the ta"blet of our hearts, is the same to every individual;"† we know that these contradictory assertions cannot both be true; and must withhold our belief when you declare "that you dare not speak " at random, otherwise you should show that you departed from "God's illuminating spirit;" because our reason will never permit us to believe that such inconsistencies can proceed from the illuminations of infinite wisdom.

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"Reason," (says Locke,) "is natural revelation, whereby the "eternal Father of Light, and fountain of all knowledge, com"municates to mankind that portion of truth which he has laid "within the reach of their natural faculties. Revelation is natu❝ral reason, enlarged by a new set of discoveries, communicated "by God immediately, which reason vouches the truth of, by the "testimony and proof it gives that they come from God." And he rebukes the presumption of those who reduce the measure of their belief to the narrow limits of their own understanding, and declares "it is an over-valuing of ourselves, to reduce all to the narrow measure of our capacities; and to conclude all things 'impossible to be done, whose manner of doing exceeds our com"prehension. This is to make our comprehension infinite, or "God finite, when what he can do, is limited to what we can con"ceive of it. If you do not understand the operations of your own "finite mind, that thinking thing, within you, do not deem it "strange, that you cannot comprehend the operations of that

* Philadelphia Sermons, page 51.

† New York Sermons, page 124.

"eternal, infinite mind, who made and governs all things, and "whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain.'

If a Socinian tells me that he cannot assent to any doctrine which is not on a level with the comprehension of the human understanding, he is at least intelligible; for he necessarily rejects the doctrine of inspiration: but when you make the same assertion, and yet declare that God is incomprehensible to us as rational creatures, and that all the aids which science and philosophy can give, can never bring man to believe rightly in God,* and that it is by his inward manifestations only that we can discover the path of our duty; the assertions are evidently incompatible; and if any deduction can be drawn from them, it is, that the indications by which alone we are taught aright, we are not bound to believe.

Reduce your argument to a syllogism, and reflect on the result. Prop. I. We cannot believe any thing which the human understanding cannot comprehend.

Prop. II. Science and philosophy, and all the knowledge which man can derive from his natural faculties, can never bring him to comprehend or believe rightly in God.

Conclusion. As it is impossible for man to believe any thing which the human understanding cannot comprehend, and he not being able by the aid of these faculties to comprehend or believe rightly in God, it is impossible for him to comprehend or believe rightly in God.

Suppose, (and I think it actually the case,) that you do not perceive the extent to which you assertion leads, and that you intended to convey the idea that we are not to believe any thing above the limits of our natural capacities on the testimony of another, and only when the same is especially revealed to us; then I would ask why you waste so much time in descanting on them? According to your own rule, none but those who are favoured with the same especial revelations can believe you, and to them your preaching is useless.

These are the inconsistencies of those who bow the knee to the image of the Baal of the present day; who, neglecting the exhortation "not to think more highly of themselves than they ought

to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith,"* have become wise in their own conceits.

If indeed the doctrine is true, that nothing is to be believed as of divine origin, which cannot be accounted for by that faculty of comprehending and judging which we derive from nature, the number of religions must be nearly in proportion to the number of individuals. What will be clear and evident to the more discerning, will be unintelligible to the superficial and ignorant, and our unbelief will be increased in the same ratio in which our intellectual faculties are diminished.

Look from the hillock on which you stand, at the ascending and descending grades of human intellect, and contemplate the immeasurable distance between the minds of a Newton and a Hicks; of a Hicks and an Esquimaux: you will find the last unable to comprehend truths of which you possess indubitable evidence, and yourself unable to understand many of the laws by which the universe is governed, although you may have before you, the demonstrations by which the great philosopher has proved their truth.

Indeed after all this boast of regulating the conduct by those facts and circumstances only which we understand, every observer must perceive, that under the practical exercise of this principle, even the common affairs of life would stand still; that we all act on the moral certainty of the existence and operation of things, the cause or production of which is beyond our comprehension; and that it is from the evidence of their actual existence, and not the discovery of the means of it, that our belief in them is established. And such is the weakness of that understanding on which you so much rely, that even on subjects where it can with propriety be exercised, we every day see men believing and disbelieving propositions under the influence of their interests and inclinations, and sincerely changing their opinions, with their situations and circumstances.

"Reason," (says the authort of a review of the internal evidence of the christian religion,) " is undoubtedly our surest guide "in all matters which lie within the narrow circle of her intel

* Romans, chap. xiv.

+ Soame Jenyns.