When I some time since addressed you, I expressed an anxious wish that you would submit to the consideration of your friends, your scheme of religion, in such a form as would enable them to examine it with deliberation; because I did believe that on this momentous subject, too much care could not be exercised. My wish has been gratified, not by your immediate agency, but by the zeal of your followers, who have caused a number of your discourses to be printed and published to the world.

When I sat down to read them, I did not expect to find a regularly concocted system, because I did not believe you had a mind capable of very extensive combination; but I did imagine you had given to your plan some semblance of consistency, and that if there was no adhesion, there would be no striking incongruity in its parts. In this I have been disappointed; for in it, nothing can be discovered but disjointed effusions, and attempts to give to different passages of Scripture novel constructions; to amuse the fancy, and engage the mind in useless enquiries after hidden things; to withdraw it from its proper business; to entangle it in the web which the vanity and restlessness of man has woven; and to substitute for that pure and simple worship which consists in prostration of spirit before the throne of grace, a grateful acknowledgment of his goodness, and humble thankfulness for the measure of light received; lofty speculations on subjects more curious than beneficial; which can have no tendency to mend the heart, and which often lead into unprofitable controversies and perplexity of mind; for it will ever remain a truth that "the judgments of the Lord are unsearchable and his ways past finding out."

The christian religion is of so much importance, and has so long engaged the attention of men; it has occasioned so much research and so many controversies; so many sermons have been preached, and so many books written, upon every part of it, that nothing new can be said upon the subject: yet such is the nature of man, that he is always requiring some novelty to rouse his attention and amuse his mind. This may perhaps furnish some apology for the preacher of a sect whose form of worship requires sermons at stated times, if he sometimes indulges in metaphorical allusion, or contrives to expand his discourse by ingenious digression. With the genuine quaker this plea must be unavailing: impressed with the sublime idea that it is by silence and abstraction from all outward things, that the mind is best fitted for true and acceptable worship, it must follow, that when a minister imbued with this spirit feels himself called upon to offer advice or instruction, he will be careful "not to multiply words without knowledge, by which counsel is darkened." But prolixity is the vice of oratory; it infects the pulpit, the senate, and the bar. There is something so gratifying to the pride and vanity of man in the display of this talent, or so fascinating is the music of his own voice, that it is almost always carried to excess; and we often see the orator pursuing his course with undiminished vigour, long after his exhausted auditors have withdrawn their attention from him.

You possess some of the qualities essential to the orator; you are voluble of speech and impressive in your delivery, and you have that confidence in the powers of your own mind, which secures you from hesitation and embarrassment: but you are deficient in others, without which all is unavailing; your perception is obscure, and your ratiocination singularly defective; and you are peculiarly unfortunate in the belief that you excel in that faculty in which you are most deficient. Hence we find you plunging into the fathomless depths of metaphysics with fearless confidence; stating propositions and assuming inferences in direct opposition to them, and such is your fondness for amplification, that even when the truth of your proposition is self-evident, you contrive to involve it in obscurity by the redundancy of your expletives, and the profusion of your attempts at illustration. You contemn all human science, for you are ignorant; yet from the whole body of ministers of that society of which you are still a member, you cannot select an individual who makes such a lofty display of technical terms, or more frequently endeavours to elucidate his observations by reference to it. You believe in the doctrine of inspiration, and you seem to claim the possession of it to a degree with which few are favoured: you say it is an unerring director, and plainly to be understood, and yet declare that all its dictates must be governed by the fallible reason of man.

Having given to reason this unlimited dictatorship, it was natural to expect that you would recommend the most assiduous cultivation of it; but you have interdicted the only means by which it is improved, and denounced by a curse those who are engaged in extending it.^[3]

All this confusion arises from your not having formed any precise idea of the terms you apply. With the words reason and rational continually in your mouth, you have never enquired into the nature and operation of that distinguishing faculty of man, nor of the manner in which alone it can be properly applied to the truths of our religion. You appear to consider it as of physical organization; an instinct of our nature which is perfected without care or cultivation, and that like one of our natural senses, it may be summoned to our aid without fear of error in its perceptions. You cannot be ignorant of the great inferiority of the reasoning powers of man in his savage state, and a little enquiry would have taught you, that observation and experience are the foundation of all knowledge, and that as we can only reason from the ideas existing in our own minds, it is by their increase alone that our reasoning faculty is extended. Hence it must follow, that as it is the noblest gift of the Almighty to man; a germ which without cultivation can never flourish, it is our duty to promote its growth and expansion by every means in our power.

I am not insensible of the evils which have arisen from the presumption with which some learned men have endeavoured to destroy that religion which is the foundation of our hope; but we ought to recollect that such is the perversity of man, that if the abuse of the blessings of Providence can be adduced as an argument against their enjoyment, there are few indeed in which we can innocently indulge. Nor is ignorance any security against this presumption; on the contrary its decisions are always more bold and dogmatic; and if they are less injurious, it is only because they are more foolish.

That we could never have arrived at a knowledge of our spiritual duties, or of many gospel truths by the deductions of human reason, is evident; were it otherwise, the revelations under the christian dispensation would have been unnecessary; but we are not to infer from this, that our reason is to be silent on this all important object; for if it is the subject of our cogitations, it is of course under the examination of our reasoning powers, and hence arises the importance of endeavouring so to improve this talent, as to enable us to unravel the subtilty of the sophist, and separate the gold, from the dross of the enthusiast. Were we all well instructed in the right use of our reason, we should be able to distinguish between that which is above, and that which is contrary to it; and we should confine it to its proper place, which is, not to judge of things revealed, but of the reality of revelation. To attempt to test the truth of the things revealed, by our reason, is inconsistent with it: they are given to us in a supernatural way, which of itself, discovers the impossibility of examining them by deductions from our own ideas; but the reality of the revelations themselves, stands on very different ground. Admirable as is the instruction to be drawn from them, the Almighty in mercy to man, did not leave them on their intrinsic merits alone; they were accompanied by signs and wonders, the evidence of the divine power by which they were sent. The life of our blessed Saviour, his doctrines, and the miracles which he wrought, have been recorded in the Scriptures, and handed down for our instruction and government; and as no man can be a christian who does not believe in them, I am fully persuaded that every candid and diligent enquirer, will find sufficient evidence of their authenticity to satisfy his mind; and that being satisfied, his faith in the things revealed will be established.

Now although I agree with you, that the inspirations of man in our day, are to be examined by the rule of right reason, I fear we shall not concur in our manner of conducting the enquiry. We have no extraordinary signs accompanying them, and we all know, how easy it is to mistake the suggestions of the imagination for the operations of the spirit of truth on the mind; and the strange visions which enthusiasm often produces, and as it is sometimes difficult to discover the source from which they spring, it is a satisfaction to know that we have a standard by which error itself may be rendered innoxious.

"I am far (says Locke,) from denying that God can, or doth sometimes, enlighten men's minds in the apprehending of certain truths, or excite them to good actions, by the immediate influence and assistance of the Holy Spirit, without any extraordinary signs accompanying it. But in such cases we have reason and Scripture, unerring rules, to know whether it be from God or no. Where the truth embraced is consonant to the revelation in the written word of God, or the action conformable to the dictates of right reason, or Holy Writ, we may be assured that we run no risk in entertaining it as such; because, though it be not an immediate revelation from God, extraordinarily operating on our minds, yet we are sure it is warranted by that revelation which he has given us of truth. But it is not the strength of our private persuasion within ourselves, that can warrant it to be a light or motion from Heaven; nothing can do that but the written word of God without us, or that standard of reason which is common to us with all men. Where reason or Scripture is express for any opinion or action, we may receive it as of divine authority; but it is not the strength of our own persuasions which can by itself give it that stamp. The bent of our own minds may favour it as much as we please; that may show it a fondling of our own, but will by no means prove it to be an offspring of Heaven, and of divine original."

Here is a great coincidence between the opinions of the christian philosopher and the quaker apologist; and although they refer to right reason as well as the Scriptures, as our guide, they meant not to use them in contradistinction to each other. When we refer to either of two rules to solve a proposition, it is because both will produce the same result; and they introduced the word reason, as applicable only to those opinions and actions, respecting which, the Scriptures are silent.

If, says the philosopher, the doctrine is consonant to reason or Scripture, it may be received without risk, although it may not proceed from an immediate revelation of God. Divine revelation, says the apologist, can never contradict the outward testimony of the Scriptures or right reason; and whatever any do, pretending to the spirit, which is contrary to the Scriptures, must be accounted and reckoned a delusion of the devil.

By this test no genuine quaker can object to being tried,^[4] "for he preaches no new gospel, but that which is confirmed by all the miracles of Christ and his apostles; and he offers nothing but that which he is able and ready to confirm by the authority of the Scriptures, which all protestants acknowledge to be true." It is indeed the only criterion by which we can judge of the faith of man, and by that criterion, how few of your sermons would escape condemnation.