These are the lessons of practical piety, which bring the mind into a situation to worship acceptably, and under the influence of which, men but little instructed in human learning, are often enabled to counsel the wise of this world in the things that lead to their peace.
But if these things are all to be changed: if in place of this simple, practical religion, our places of worship are to be converted into theatres for metaphysical disquisitions, and the discussion of questions more curious than useful; and we are to be instructed in the unprofitable controversies which have so long perplexed and disturbed the christian world: if faith is no longer a christian principle, and the revelations of the scriptures rejected when not to be arrived at by the analogy of reason, then indeed must the Quaker ministry be constituted anew, and even your own labours cease. The old and unchanged servants can take no part or portion in the new order of things; and it cannot be expected that the disciples of the new school will take for a master to lead them to the truth by analogous reasoning, one, who has yet to be taught what reason really is.
LETTER IX.
Your assertion that "you cannot believe what you do not understand," is often quoted by your followers, as a proof of your having emancipated yourself from the thraldom of tradition, and risen superior to those prejudices, which early education, and the authority of antiquity have fastened on the minds of men; and yet when we examine and compare this assertion with the doctrines you inculcate, it appears evident that you have not a correct idea of the meaning of your favourite maxim.
This understanding can only be arrived at by the natural faculties of perception, judgment, and reasoning, and as the truth of the especial revelations of which you speak, are propositions which cannot be demonstrated by the use of these faculties; they must, if assented to, be purely matters of faith, arising from our belief in the general truth of the christian dispensation.
There is a clear distinction between things which are according to, above, and contrary to, reason. The first are propositions, the truth of which may be discovered by the use of the ideas we have acquired from sensation and reflection. The second are propositions whose truth cannot be investigated by these means: and the third, such as are inconsistent and irreconcileable to our clear and distinct ideas.
Thus, were you to tell us, that without other impulse than your own will, you can give mobility to matter, and at your pleasure reduce it to a quiescent state, we cannot withhold our assent, because we see you exercising that dominion in the government of your limbs; and yet so far from understanding the operation of this wonderful power, the mind cannot form the least idea how the effect is produced. But when we hear you declare to one set of people "that the law of the spirit of life in one, is not the law of the spirit of life in his brother; and that each individual requires a peculiar law to himself;"[[67]] and to another, "that this divine law which is written by the finger of God upon the tablet of our hearts, is the same to every individual;"[[68]] we know that these contradictory assertions cannot both be true; and must withhold our belief when you declare "that you dare not speak at random, otherwise you should show that you departed from God's illuminating spirit;" because our reason will never permit us to believe that such inconsistencies can proceed from the illuminations of infinite wisdom.
"Reason," (says Locke,) "is natural revelation, whereby the eternal Father of Light, and fountain of all knowledge, communicates to mankind that portion of truth which he has laid within the reach of their natural faculties. Revelation is natural reason, enlarged by a new set of discoveries, communicated by God immediately, which reason vouches the truth of, by the testimony and proof it gives that they come from God." And he rebukes the presumption of those who reduce the measure of their belief to the narrow limits of their own understanding, and declares "it is an over-valuing of ourselves, to reduce all to the narrow measure of our capacities; and to conclude all things impossible to be done, whose manner of doing exceeds our comprehension. This is to make our comprehension infinite, or God finite, when what he can do, is limited to what we can conceive of it. If you do not understand the operations of your own finite mind, that thinking thing, within you, do not deem it strange, that you cannot comprehend the operations of that eternal, infinite mind, who made and governs all things, and whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain."
If a Socinian tells me that he cannot assent to any doctrine which is not on a level with the comprehension of the human understanding, he is at least intelligible; for he necessarily rejects the doctrine of inspiration; but when you make the same assertion, and yet declare that God is incomprehensible to us as rational creatures, and that all the aids which science and philosophy can give, can never bring man to believe rightly in God,[[69]] and that it is by his inward manifestations only that we can discover the path of our duty; the assertions are evidently incompatible; and if any deduction can be drawn from them, it is, that the indications by which alone we are taught aright, we are not bound to believe.
Reduce your argument to a syllogism, and reflect on the result.