If, in my succeeding observations, I refer to the opinions held by any other sect than that in which I have been educated, I wish it to be understood, that it is neither to approve nor censure. Believing, (as I sincerely do,) that christianity consists not in forms or observances; neither in subscriptions to curiously contrived creeds, nor in confessions of faith; but in that worship which purifies and cleanseth the heart; so I believe that he who ministers to a congregation in this spirit, (whatever may be his name among men,) ministers profitably; "and that both he that soweth, and he that reapeth, may rejoice together."

In reading your sermons, it evidently appears that you have imbibed the notions of a sect, who attribute much more to reason, than any other christian society, and you have asserted that you are unable to believe any thing which you cannot bring down to the level of your own understanding;^[8] yet you believe in direct revelation, and with singular inconsistency assert that all your discourses are from its immediate dictates, and without the intervention of any other cause; thus calling upon your auditors to assent to that which you assert to be impossible; for by no process of human reason can the reality of your revelations be tested, and if they are assented to, it must be by faith alone.

I know that you have been hailed as an efficient fellow labourer in destroying our belief in some doctrines which are considered as fundamental by almost every christian sect, and I am apprehensive that this applause has stimulated you to greater daring: but you ought to recollect how much easier it is to destroy than to build up, and you may be assured that when the work of destruction is accomplished, your services will be at an end: your coadjutors have too much understanding not to perceive, that you have not sufficient knowledge to aid in erecting the building which is to be raised on the ruins, and that you are without the skill necessary to give uniformity to its appearance, or embellishment to its parts. When the temple of reason is finished and dedicated, you may be permitted to worship in its vestibule, but will never be called upon to administer the rites at its altar.

It seems, however, that you are not quite ignorant of the apparent inconsistency of these contradictory assertions, and it is proper that your explanations should be fairly examined, that we should endeavour to ascertain what you really mean by the word reason, and how it is to be applied to your own inspirations: in order to do this, it will be necessary to quote your own words.

In a discourse delivered in New York, you say, "Now we learn as rational creatures, that God spoke to the Israelites not only as such, but that he always addresses us as rational creatures. Were we not rational creatures we could not understand; for nothing is a recipient for the spirit of God but the rational soul, and therefore we are always to understand him rationally; for this is according to the nature of things."

In this remark, the only novelty is, the confusion in which your ideas are involved; for I cannot believe there were any of your audience so ignorant as not to know that it is according to the nature of things, that as we were created rational creatures, we should be addressed as such; and that if we were without understanding, we could not understand.

Again you say, "as reason is a dormant principle without revelation, so when God is pleased to reveal things unto the immortal souls of the children of men, they are then seen rationally: and then reason has an opportunity to exercise its balancing and comparing principle in man, and therefore there is a two-fold revelation to man."

You surely cannot intend to persuade us, that reason has always been dormant without revelation, or you must yourself be ignorant, or believe that we are ignorant, of the writings handed down to us, and which sufficiently attest the powers of the human mind, even when unilluminated by the revelations of the Gospel, and in the darkest ages of Paganism. And if, as I suppose, you meant to limit this dormant principle, (as you call it,) to the revelations of the spirit, you involve it in absurdity. We will now examine your propositions, and endeavour to discover the deductions to be drawn from them. You say that reason is a dormant principle without revelation:—when any thing is revealed by God, it is seen rationally;—that then reason is to exercise its balancing and comparing principle, and the result is, that there is a two-fold revelation in man.

We have heretofore been taught to believe, that the only way in which we can arrive at a knowledge of the truth of any thing by our reason, is by the deductions drawn from the ideas which have been impressed on our minds by the use of our natural faculties; and that revelation is a special communication, in a manner independent of these faculties. But admitting that all the theologians and metaphysicians who have preceded you, have been in error, and that you alone are acquainted with the nature and operation of the faculty of reason, in what does it result? Why, when the Almighty reveals any thing to our souls, He, by another revelation, enables us to examine and discover whether the first revelation is right; but you have not told us, by which we are to be governed, if they differ. If you say they always accord, then a two-fold revelation is superfluous, and you admit that "our Creator never deals superfluously with us;"^[9] and if they should disagree, how are we to decide? Your great and leading maxim, "that for which a thing is such, the thing itself is more such," will not apply, for both revelations are immediate and from the same source; and it will be necessary for the numerous^[10] converts which your maxim has made, again to apply to you to solve the difficulty. Can folly itself believe that the truth of any thing revealed to our immortal souls by infinite wisdom, requires confirmation; or that if it does, that confirmation can be found in the authority from which it was first derived? And is it not extraordinary, that any individual can go on day after day, and year after year, professing to explain to us the nature and object of revelation, and the use of our reason when applied to it; and yet not know, that divine revelation must be immutably true, and that as it is communicated in a way wholly unconnected with our reason, all reasoning upon it is vain. Whether the revelation is from a divine source is another question, and one which our reason may sometimes enable us to resolve.

In the discourse you delivered at Newtown in Bucks County, you enter more largely on this subject; and as it seems to comprise all your notions in relation to reason, as connected with our religion, it is proper to examine it with particular attention.

You say, "Right reason is as much a gift of God, as any gift that we can receive: therefore, nothing but the rational soul is a recipient for divine revelation; and when the light shines upon it and shows any object, reason brings it to the test. If it is kept in right order, and under the regulating influence of the divine law, it brings things to balance, and it is brought to know every thing which may rise up, although at first sight. If it will not accord with right reason, we must cast it off as the work of Antichrist. All that the Almighty requires of us, will always result in reality; and we are not to believe any thing which does not so result. Here now we see how easy it is to go along, if we pursue the right course; but as free agents, we can reason ourselves into the belief that wrong is right."^[11]

I have perused this passage with great attention, and so far from discovering any thing to enable me to get easily along, it appears to be wholly inexplicable. I have examined it as a whole, and in its different divisions, without being able to arrive at any result. In this perplexity I recollected that I was, in my youth, in company with several ancient friends, when some discussion occurred respecting the true interpretation of a passage in a book which was the subject of conversation. An individual present, with some flippancy observed, that he had read it with great attention both backwards and forwards several times, and thought he was able to explain it; when he was interrupted by a venerable old man, who with admirable gravity of countenance and simplicity of manner, said "He wished the friend to inform the company, in which way of reading, he understood it best." But here even this novel experiment must fail, and had the ingenious expounder tried it on the passage I have quoted, I fear he must have confessed it was equally unintelligible in either way; and that, being contrary to all reason, it must, if examined by the severity of your own rule, be deemed the work of Antichrist.

If you had said that no revelation can be the suggestion of infinite wisdom, if contrary to right reason, it would have been intelligible and true: but if the divine light really discovers any thing to us, we want no test to confirm it. Again you say, that reason, if kept under the regulating influence of the divine law, will know everything that rises up at first sight; but that as free agents, we can reason ourselves into a belief that wrong is right. Now what kind of reason can this be? It does seem that reason is given to us because we are free agents, and that it would be a very useless gift were it otherwise: and we do know that this faculty is improved by observation and experience, and that so far from its enabling us to know every thing at first sight, it is by study and meditation that our knowledge is extended, and that at last, we know but little. But the reason of which you speak, is a reason that arrives at all knowledge without deduction, and can act and determine with unerring certainty, although contrary to that reason which is given to us as free agents. It must follow, that the faculty which you call reason, is an instinct never before known to exist; or that all this circumlocution ends in the production of one of those phantasms which are sometimes engendered by the imagination, and which has persuaded you that two inspirations are necessary to confirm our belief, that they are distinct in their nature, and that one of them is right reason.

When the sensations occasioned by the sonorous voice in which the pompous terms analogy of reason, rational souls, and recipients for truth are delivered, have passed away; and we seriously meditate the manner in which they are applied; low indeed must that man be in the scale of intellectual being, who does not discover that all "is but as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal."