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.
LETTER II.
It may now be proper to state the motives which have again induced me publicly to address you, and to inform you what course it is my intention to pursue; and as I have no standing in the church, and am aloof from those scenes which must sometimes give rise to asperities, even in the bosom of meekness, have no personal acquaintance with you, and have been taught to respect your private character, I enter upon the subject, uninfluenced by many of the passions and prejudices which sway and control the opinions of man. But although not in membership, I feel a deep interest in the Society of Friends, and while I am without that sectarian spirit, which in the narrow breasts of some individuals, confines all true worship to a particular description of people, (and which I am happy in believing is no part of a quaker's faith;) long observation has convinced me, that there is no society whose principles and discipline are more eminently successful in inculcating the moral doctrines of christianity, and there is none whose religious tenets are more in conformity with my own ideas of true spiritual worship.
I have perused your religious discourses with some attention, and as they appear to me to be in a style, seldom, if ever before, heard in the meetings of the Society of Friends; are abounding in terms which if not rightly understood may lead into great error, and with propositions, which, in the conclusions that may be drawn from them, may be destructive to religion, I thought I should not be unprofitably employed in endeavouring to separate your principles from the mass of expletives and allusions, in which they are enveloped; to discover the true object which you have in view, and to show the inconsistencies in which you have involved yourself by your attempts to define inscrutable things: and if I should sometimes be thought to indulge in language unsuitable to the solemnity of the subject, my only excuse can be, that when you occasionally favour your auditors with a display of your reasoning powers, there is such a neglect of all order in your arrangement, and such metaphorical confusion in your ideas, that when you arrive at your usual conclusion, "now how plain this is," the effect is so comic that it would extort a smile from gravity itself.
In the examination of the doctrines of every christian teacher, the first and most essential point, is their conformity to the Scriptures; but as your many deviations from them have been shown with sufficient clearness in a pamphlet lately published, I shall not enter into the subject generally, although I may occasionally refer to them. Neither do I propose to enter upon an analysis of each particular discourse, for they are mixed up of so many heterogeneous materials, are so diversified in their objects, and so devious in their courses, that the end I have in view will perhaps be best answered, by referring only to such topics, as in their consequences, are of most importance.
In the first discourse in the volume now before me, which was delivered at Friends' meeting house in Mulberry street, your principal objects appear to be, to depreciate the value of the Scriptures, and to disprove the account of the miraculous birth of our Saviour. On the first subject it may hereafter be proper to make some observations; to the latter I shall now give my attention.