In reading your discourses my attention was particularly engaged by the sermon delivered at Newtown, in Bucks County, and it did seem to me so much at variance with the principles which induce the Quakers to assemble for public worship, that were there no other evidence, it would be sufficient to prove that you are not under the guidance of that spirit, by which, in former days, their ministers were governed.

That society believe that the great object of such assembling is to endeavour, by shutting out all external things, to discipline the mind to that pure and silent worship and waiting upon God, in which they may experience Christ to be their shepherd and teacher; and although this solemn silence may sometimes be profitably interrupted for the purposes of admonition, instruction and encouragement, yet that no minister can, (when under right direction,) expatiate on topics irrelevant to the subject.

A little examination must, I think, convince us that your sermon, so far from being delivered under such impressions, carries on the face of it, the proof of a mind struggling for distinction: and that in this effort, much has been introduced foreign to the subject on which you professed to treat, and however innocent in itself, very unsuitable to the place, and peculiarly calculated to withdraw the mind from the object for which the assembly were ostensibly gathered.

You commence your sermon by stating your apprehensions that there are individuals who are not sufficiently impressed with the necessity of order and discipline in society, and seem to consider it your duty to convince them of its importance. To a plain understanding this does not appear difficult, for the arguments in favour of it are so palpable, that a very few minutes indeed, would be sufficient to any one not in the habit of multiplying words, to establish it beyond all controversy. You, however, seem never disposed to take the common road: the arguments would be but the repetition of a thrice told tale, and would therefore command no extraordinary attention: they might beget conviction, but would not produce that effect upon the audience, which, if not always the object, is so dear to the orator.

But in deviating from the road, you have lost yourself in the wilderness; and such has been your entanglement, that after all the time which you consumed, I am sure there was not an individual present in the meeting, who could tell what you really meant by discipline, how it is to be established, or in what manner it is to be enforced. I form this opinion from having read the sermon: for with all the advantages of frequent recurrence to particular passages, and of re-perusal, I found it very difficult to form any idea of your meaning: how then could your audience, with none of these advantages, in the very few moments in which they could preserve unbroken the slight concatenation of your ideas, encumbered as they are with references unconnected with the subject, receive any information or instruction from them. If I am correct in my conclusion, and sure I am that no one who heard you can contradict me, it must follow, that being incomprehensible to those to whom it was addressed, it could not proceed from the suggestions of true wisdom.

After a few observations on the subject of discipline, you give to your audience a kind of lecture on astronomy. Had you confined yourself to recalling to their recollection the wonderful harmony in the works of the Almighty, it would not have been incongruous; but to enter into a long dissertation on the sun, moon, and stars, and on vacuum and unmeasured space, was neither adapted to the place or company. It was no doubt quite new and entertaining to such of them as had never read the elementary treatises in use in some of our schools; and it is certainly the most sublime of all sciences, and that in which the powers of the human mind have been displayed in the greatest degree; yet I cannot think you were judicious in selecting a Quaker meeting as a proper theatre for the display of your talents, nor can I believe that your ingenuity can make any application of the facts you have stated to the subject of your discourse. You tell us that the sun, although it emits so much light, never lessens; that there is harmonious and social commune between the heavenly bodies;^[19] that the earth, if kept too long in the cold, would grow heavier, and falling from its proper place, derange the other bodies; that the moon has a great effect upon our globe, &c. &c. The moon, we know, is thought by many to have a considerable influence on the imaginations of men in certain situations, but I never heard that such influence had any effect in producing good order and discipline, and no one supposes that the rays of the sun can throw any light upon the subject. Besides you ought to have recollected that you were subjecting yourself to the charge of ingratitude; for surely the men of science must think you ungrateful in availing yourself so largely of those labours, which you have endeavoured to persuade your friends are a curse to mankind.^[20]

I am not so ignorant of the situation of the Society of Friends, as to be uninformed of the uneasiness which is felt by some of its members under its established rules of order and discipline; and as I know that your preaching was one of the principal causes of it, I did think it of some importance to endeavour to ascertain your opinions on the subject. It was indeed a laborious work to travel through the many pages over which they are dispersed; to remove the various matters with which they were encumbered, and collect the scattered fragments. Yet after all my toil, I found my work not half accomplished. These fragments when brought together, were of such various sizes and colours, so diversified in shape, and heterogeneous in their materials, that it surpassed my skill to arrange them in any way consistent with order and propriety; and if the knowledge of them can afford any instruction, it must be from the striking contrast between their wild deformity, and the rational rules of order and discipline which they are intended to supersede.

You say that all aversion to order and discipline arises from the want of a right knowledge of ourselves: that when we come to this right knowledge, we shall be so perfect in these things, that there will be no contests or divisions among us: that all order and discipline must be fixed by the divine Lawgiver, and that then it cannot be violated; and therefore that all attempts to censure or control a member must proceed from those who counterfeit its meaning, in order to lord it over others: that each member of society is in himself a little world, which, if kept in right order and subjection, all would be harmony and discipline; but, when this is not the case, all attempts to enforce them tend to increase the confusion: that we all have the law within ourselves, therefore order and discipline must never be contrived by mortals: that the Quaker discipline is unsound, because it is in the letter; but that there are some true Quakers, and that each of these has all discipline and order within himself.

Now what is all this? Is it not a second growth of that Fungus which was engendered in the hot bed of fanaticism many years past; and has not the sober sense of the humble Christian, or the wit and humour of a Butler, been able to eradicate it from the soil of the Christian church? Are we again to have among us those men above ordinances, who mistake confusion for order, and the destruction of our faith for the consummation of religion?

These questions must present themselves to every mind when examining your opinions; for, when stripped of all glosses, and exhibited in their genuine colours, they mean that all written rules of order and discipline are restraints upon the liberty of the saints: that no rules should be established by men, for that every man has the rule written in his own heart, and that there alone he is accountable.

That no man is accountable to another for his religious belief, and that every man has a right to worship in the way which he may believe most acceptable to his Creator, are undeniable truths; but as the different Christian sects have congregated on account of a unity in their religious tenets, and assemble together for the purpose of uniting in divine worship, they have a right, and, (if they are firm in their belief,) it is their duty, to establish such rules and regulations as will best preserve their religion in, what they believe to be, its greatest purity; and in an especial manner to prevent the preaching of doctrines adverse to it. And this is no infringement of the liberty of conscience; for any man who dissents from their doctrines may separate himself from them; he may unite himself with any other sect; or if, in his career, his spiritual knowledge has set him above all ordinances, he may erect his own standard, and, unrestrained by forms and unfettered by creeds, he may give the utmost strain to his imagination, and perhaps become himself the head of a sect. But no casuistry can justify, or pretence excuse a man, who continues to be ostensibly the member of a religious community, for the purpose of undermining its principles or destroying the belief in its tenets. Let him believe them erroneous and the substitutes he offers unquestionably true; it alters not the case. The source will be impure, and the waters which flow from it, tainted.

If the mind can be brought to conceive the possibility of the existence of a society formed according to your rules and orders of discipline, it must present itself to the imagination in all the sublime confusion of another chaos—you may offer yourself to explain the word of God, and you will be reminded that this is all in the letter: you may tell them that the Scriptures may be read to advantage, when all things in them have been previously revealed;^[21] and they may reply, that reading them will then be quite unnecessary—you may exhort them to assemble together for the purpose of divine worship, "for that then we should be instructed what to do, and how to bring our offerings, to be handed over to the priest, so that they may be made acquainted with our state, and may preach the true gospel to us;"^[22] and they may tell you "that such assemblies are not the places to gather spiritual food."^[23] If you are asked why you waste so much time in preaching, you will tell them "the reason is plain; that although the letter directs us to the law, and nothing else can teach us, yet we flee from it; and therefore outward instruments are raised up and clothed with power:"^[24] and they may reply that this is also the letter, and "that the Lord is too kind to send them away for instruction; and that he is always present, a schoolmaster to every soul."^[25] If you explain to them your own growth and experience in spiritual knowledge, they will ask you of what use it can be to them, and tell you, "that each individual requires a law peculiar to himself; and that the law of the Spirit of Life in one, is not the law of the Spirit of Life in another"^[26]—and if, (adopting this opinion,) you should declare to them that the law of the Spirit of Life is different in each individual, some of your audience may assert, "that the divine law which is written by the finger of God upon the tablet of our hearts, is the same to every individual"^[27]—and if fatigued with these objections, you should express your surprise at their number, inconsistency and futility, you will be told that they are all furnished by yourself.

If, then, the great founder of the sect is yet so indistinct in his vision, what must be the situation of those who are less advanced in the religious experience of your new school? If he is so frequently involved in contradictions, what must be the accumulated mass when collected together?

Should your project be realised, and such a congregation assembled, those who, like yourself, search the Scriptures for types and figures, may, with much less violation of probability than occurs in your discourses, consider the meeting as a consummation of that confusion of tongues typified in the building of the Tower of Babel.