12

POSSIBILITY OF UNION.

cause you adopted them merely as traditionary heirlooms; because you did not own that there was a spirit and life in them.' What if they are saying to the Quakers,- You have been fighting all along against that which was the standing witness, the divine scheme for asserting those spiritual truths, and sustaining that spiritual life, of which you thought that your own hearts were the safe depositaries;-now, if you would not see everything that you have accounted most precious wither before your eyes, you must turn to these forms for the preservation of them.'

I hope I have explained sufficiently how entirely my views respecting your present position, differ from those of the churchmen and dissenters who have hitherto addressed you. Instead of wishing to dispossess you of your patriarchal faith, I lament to see that that faith is not stronger and deeper. Instead of thinking you too firmly rooted in the principles which George Fox promulgated, I would, if I could, establish you more thoroughly in them. Instead of availing myself of the dissatisfaction which I see prevailing amongst certain members of your body respecting these doctrines, and saying- See how nobly we support those other doctrines, to which you suppose they are opposed,' — I would do my utmost to persuade these persons, that the truths which they are just beginning to perceive, and are embracing with such a first-love ardour, are not inconsistent with the views which they are inclined to abandon, but can only be held soundly and

6

PURPOSE OF THESE LETTERS.

13

firmly when associated with them. I wish to make each one of your parties perceive, that it has hold of a principle, which it must not for all the world abandon; and I wish then to show you by what means only you can uphold each of these principles without mutilation, with real power, and in harmony with the rest. In plain words, I wish not to unquaker you in order to make you churchmen, but to teach you how to be thorough Quakers, that you may be thorough churchmen. And this power of interpreting to you your own position, of leading you to be what each of you in some sort is striving to be, I possess, not in virtue of any talents or insight which belong to me as an individual; - I possess it, because God has been pleased to place me on the high ground of a church polity, from which I can look down and see the directions that you are taking, and show you to what point they are leading. This is the revenge that I wish to take for any little insults that you or your fathers have put upon us; this is the compensation that I wish to render you for the injuries real or fancied which they or you may have endured at our hands.

I consider George Fox a great man and an eminent teacher. Do not mistake me. I do not think George Fox had a commission to preach the Gospel. I do not think that, in the strict sense of the word, he did preach the Gospel; but I think that he was raised up to declare a truth, without which the Gospel has no real meaning,

14

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GEORGE FOX.

no permanent existence. All around him, George Fox heard men preaching the doctrines of Christianity preaching justification, sanctification, election, final perseverance, and what not; exhibiting amazing logical subtlety; making nice distinctions, building parties upon them ;-his heart required something which none of them could tell him. All these doctrines were about God and man,-all talked of a connection between God and man; but all their theological skill, and all their theories on human nature, seemed to George Fox only to make the distance wider between the poor man and his Lord. Impassable gulfs of speculation intervened. There was a voice in the heart of this mechanic which told him that this could not be. As he studied his Bible to understand that voice, he found continual encouragements to believe that it could not be. At the same time, the darkness that was over his mind, his incapacity for realizing that communion which he felt must somehow be possibletold him that the teachers of the day were in some sense right, — that there is a deep fountain of corruption in man, and that man, unless raised out of that corruption, could never apprehend God. The tumult within him becomes more and more awful, till at last the bird of calm lights upon the waters, and the day begins to dawn. He perceives that man is a twofold creature; that there is a power always drawing him down, to which he is naturally subject, and to be subject to which is death; but that there is also a power

THE WORD AND THE CONSCIENCE.

15

drawing him up, a light shining in darkness, and that to yield to that power, to dwell in that light, is life and peace. To this conclusion he was brought himself, and this, with the earnest zeal of a lover of mankind, he longed to tell to all the world, My brother, there is a light shining in the darkness of your heart-the darkness has not comprehended it,—Oh believe in that light, follow in that light, and be happy!' Dare I say that one atom of this belief was deception? Dare I say that he was not taught this truth from above? Not till all the deepest and most sacred convictions of my own heart have been resisted or have perished; not till I become a traitor to God's house, and deny all his discipline; not till truth and error become hopelessly confounded and intermingled in my mind.

In this part of Fox's life, in this part of his discoveries, there is not one symptom of fanaticism or mysticism. Fanaticism glorifies its own notions, and seeks to build a sect upon them; but Fox spoke of a light which lighteneth every man that cometh into the world. Mysticism glorifies its own feelings and revelations; but Fox considered that the revelation to himself was only the discovery of a truth which belonged alike to all his brethren. Am I to say with some of your Friends at the Yearly Meeting, or with some of other sects who have addressed you on your errors, this only meant the natural conscience,only meant that! And what does that mean? It

16 WHY FOX'S DOCTRINE IS OFFENSIVE.

is darkening counsel by words without knowledge, to substitute one phrase for another phrase. It is a cruel mockery of man, to tell him that a conviction which has been ripening in his heart through solitude and anguish, and almost despair; which has haunted him by day and night; which he has felt that the sin within him kept him from realizing; which, at last, when it has been born within him, he has embraced with more than a mother's joy :-I say it is cruel mockery of man, and a contempt of God, to say that this only means something to which you attach no meaning at all. Would it not be far more correct to say, that the conscience means this, and that the facts of the conscience can be explained on no other principle? Would it not be far more right to say, that precisely that which does awaken all thoughts, and reflections, and remorse in man whatever, and has its seat in what he rightly calls his conscience,—does arise from the presence of this Divine Word, and is the consciousness of that presence, and of His right to command us?

Does such an opinion sound startling to some men of this generation? I know that it does; I know that it must; but let me tell them, that it is a scheme of philosophy which they have adopted; - not, perhaps, from study; for there is a philosophy which dwells in the market-place as well as in the school, and which, when some great name has given it currency, becomes the inheritance of all, whom a