Thus was the simplicity of the Christian religion deformed, and the understandings of men subdued by an ambitious priesthood. They knew that gravity and meekness were the attributes and best ornaments of a gospel minister, and while pride and the spirit of domination reigned within them uncontrolled, they sought, by a sanctimonious exterior and affected humility, to prolong their sway; and we find the most imperious of the Roman pontiffs, when treading on the necks of kings, subscribing himself the servant of the servants of God.
I fear you will consider me as presumptuous, yet I must venture to entreat you to examine the course you have been pursuing; to consider whether the habit you have acquired of looking for some hidden novelty in every passage of Scripture, does not prevent you from perceiving its obvious meaning; and whether the manifest inconsistencies in which this practice involves you, is not sufficient proof of your being under the guidance of a different spirit from that which you claim as a director.
I have no disposition to question the uprightness of your motives, but I am fully persuaded that the applause with which you have been surrounded, has given an unhappy bias to your mind; and that if it was under a right direction, you would be enabled to see, that it is not the letter of the Scripture, but the habit, (in which you so largely indulge,) of seeking for meanings other than the letter, which has caused so many false interpretations and divisions among men: that the letter is intended to teach us our moral and spiritual duties, and points out with sufficient clearness the way in which we should walk; and that the nice distinctions and elaborate refinements of the orator, neither have a tendency to enlighten the understandings nor purify the hearts of the audience, though they often gratify the vanity of the one and amuse the imaginations of the other.
LETTER V.
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]]