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pledge to the ghastly populace around them. But what of that? To lose one's way as a pilgrim to the world of spirits! to be guided wrong in our blindness by one as blind! to be deluded of the path of life, and to forfeit our hope and our soul as the price of reckless credulity, "believing a lie!" This is terrible.-Often is it-history too.

4. The preacher who took the text, and whom Fox so abused, interrupted, contradicted, while peaceably officiating in his own desk and to his own people, and according to his own and their conscience of duty, WAS MOST CERTAINLY RIGHT IN HIS POSITION; he was telling the truth, the pure and proper sense of his text to his hearers; and more truth than Fox ever told; when that foolish and rash zealot commenced his offensive insolence, as "the Lord said unto" him! This is evident from the showing of Fox himself. Whence, I would demand, with feelings of tenderness to them,

5. What degree of silliness or sinfulness does it require to accredit his inspiration! If here deluded; if here demonstrated infallibly to have been a mere mountebank of spiritual fanaticism at large, and furious in annoying others and all others that would not follow him; if here his certain converse with "the Lord" turns out to be an abominable deception, a pre-eminently stupid falsehood: who knows that on other occasions, where he manifested the same temper, manners, principles, he was any more inspired? Where is the proof of his inspiration at all? Shall we go to his "miracles" to find it? His "prophecy" certainly came "by the will of

man." That of "the Holy Ghost" is of a kind every way different, superior, accompanied with complete rational evidence.

The general assembly of the presbyterian church, at their annual sessions, A. D. 1804, passed the following declaration of their sober views on this subject and if it had been legislated on purpose, it could not more aptly condemn the principles of Quakerism, as exemplified in this and like outrages of Fox and his similars of the society. "We strongly bear our testimony against those persons who pretend to immediate impulses and revelations from heaven, those divine communications which were given only to the prophets and apostles, who were appointed by God to reveal to mankind the way of eternal life. When men presume that the Holy Spirit, contrary to the established order of Providence, interferes, by particular impulse, to direct them in all the common affairs of life; when they deem themselves to be impelled by him, to particular acts, or particular religious exercises, contrary to the established order of the gospel and the obvious duties of the moment; when finally, they pretend to miraculous powers or prophetic influences and the foretelling of future events: all these are evidences of a wild enthusiastic spirit, and tend, eventually, to destroy the authority of the word of God, as the sole rule of faith and practice." I bless God that such remains to be the unanimous averment and testimony of that large denomination, whose divisions are all on smaller and comparatively inconsiderable points, for the most part :-and

whose very dissidence not more evinces the imperfection of christians and even christian ministers in this world, than it demonstrates also, in respect to presbyterians, their common freedom of thought, their principled tenacity of right, their high common estimate of the value of truth, and their characteristic purpose, by the grace of God, to "strive together"—and may it ever be "standing fast in one spirit, with one mind!-for the faith of the gospel : and IN NOTHING terrified by their adversaries; which [fact of opposition for the sake of the truth] is to them an evident token of perdition, but to us of salvation, and that of God." I bless God, not only that I am converted, as I trust, from Quakerism to christianity, but that I belong to this very denomination of the church of Jesus Christ! And my soul's most unsectarian prayer for all my brethren and fathers of the presbyterian church, is—that they may kindly and charitably appreciate each other; that they may know and honor their high obligations to their Great Head; and that divine prosperity may attend, preserve, and bless them all, forever.5

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There may be some implication or confusion of the truth, in respect to what Fox avers in his speech about the Jews, and even the great men of their nation, rejecting the Messiah. But the sentiment that this resulted from their fondness for the oracles of God, is not merely gratuitous; it is impiously false. "Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?"

Again, Abraham said unto him, "If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead." They were so occupied in "teaching for doctrines the commandments of men" and in propagating their "own traditions," that they neglected "the word of God" and were (as they are to this day) as ignorant of the real sense of the Old as of the New Testament.

But "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his." True; but what has this to do with "a universal inward light?" a light "in every man?" It refers to saints alone, whom the Spirit of Christ hath marked and sealed for his own eternal kingdom. It discriminates saints from "the whole world" that "lieth in wickedness." It respects not the influence miraculous or extraordinary; but that which is through the truth, common to all saints in every age, producing "the fruit of the Spirit" in the living character; according to Gal. 5 22-26. and Eph. 59. It is the Spirit influential, not the Spirit personal; it is not conscious converse, but moral purity produced; it is not inspiration, but holiness; not revealing new truth fresh to the mind, but bringing one to see and love the truth already "written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope." This is true of the subserviency of the whole Bible. The Spirit uses his written truth as the medium of all his illumining and sanctifying influence. "For WHATSOEVER THINGS were written aforetime," have a common relation to the

people of God. John, 17: 17. Rom. 15: 4. Now, if in this sense, Fox had avered that the rejectors of Christ had the scriptures insufficiently, not having also his Spirit; and that if men had his Spirit they would not reject him; his position were true : and after this truth possibly the moral instinct of Friends may be often blindly groping, when they know "neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm." This grace in the heart is piety. It is often called "the fruit of the Spirit;" often by the name of some one of its multifarious branches; often by the name of "the Spirit ;" because the Spirit of God produces and sustains it all. This grace is an indispensable in religion-universally. It is a qualification and a sine-qua-non of office not only, but of standing also in the church invisible. The Jews that rejected Christ were destitute of this qualification. But see how Fox confounds things! With him the qualification of a judge, is a rule of judging! As if the competency of Hale as chief justice, were the supreme law of the realm; the statute-book being nothing to it! They took upon them to try their doctrines by the scriptures." Were it not then more presumptuous for them or others to "take upon them" to try Christ and his apostles by a still more holy and superior rule? For Fox makes the Lawgiver every where his superior rule; to which the scripture, that was "given forth" from that, is "a secondary rule!" Truly, it was no part of their sin or of ours to pay too much court to "the word of God, the sword of the Spirit;" the universal instrument of his saving opera

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