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]
Footnote 3:
See discourses delivered in Philadelphia, page 53. "Oh that men of
science might be aware what a curse they are to the inhabitants of the
earth; what a great curse." There is no novelty in this opinion, for
we find a poet more than two hundred years ago making Jack Cade
exclaim, "thou hast most traitorously corrupted the youth of the
realm, in erecting a grammar school: and whereas before, our
forefathers had no other books but the score and tally, thou hast
caused printing to be used; and contrary to the king, his crown and
dignity, thou hast built a paper mill. It will be proved to thy face,
that thou hast men about thee that usually talk of a noun and a verb,
and such abominable words as no christian can endure to hear."
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.
Footnote 4:
Barclay.