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properly attended to, subservient to the instruction of man; and that it enlarges the sphere of his instruction in this manner, in proportion as it is received and encouraged. Thus the man, who

is attentive to these divine notices, sees the animal, the vegetable, and the planetary world, with spiritual eyes. He cannot stir abroad, but he is taught in his own feelings, without any motion of his will, some lesson for his spiritual advantage; or he perceives so vitally some of the attributes of the divine being, that he is called upon to offer some spiritual incense to his maker. If the lamb frolics and gambols in his presence as he walks along, he may be made spiritually to see the beauty and happiness of innocence. If he finds the stately oak laid prostrate by the wind, he may be spiritually taught to discern the emptiness of human power; while the same spirit may teach him inwardly the advantage of humility, when he looks at the little hawthorn which has survived the storm. When he sees the change and the fall of the autumnal leaf, he may be spiritually admonished of his own change and dissolution, and of the necessity of a holy life. Thus the spirit of God may teach men by outward objects and occurrences in the world; but where this spirit is away, or rather where it is not attended to, no such lesson can be

taught. Natural objects of themselves can excite only natural ideas: and the natural man, looking at them, can derive only natural pleasure, or draw natural conclusions from them. In looking at the Sun, he may be pleased with its warmth, and anticipate its advantages to the vegetable world. In plucking and examining a flower, he may be struck with its beauty, its mechanism, and its fragrant smell. In observing the butterfly, as it wings its way before him, he may smile at its short journeys from place to place, and admire the splendour upon its wings. But the beauty of Creation is dead to him, as far as it depends upon connecting it spiritually with the character of God. For no spiritual impression can arise from any natural objects, but through the intervention of the spirit of God.

William Wordsworth, in his instructive poems, has described this teaching by external objects in consequence of impressions from a higher power, as differing from any teaching by books or the human understanding, and as arising without any motion of the will of man, in so beautiful and simple a manner, that I cannot do otherwise than make an extract from them in this place. Lively as the poem is, to which I allude, I conceive it will

not lower the dignity of the subject. It is called Expostulation and Reply, and is as follows:

"Why, William, on that old gray stone,

"Thus for the length of half a day,

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Up! Up! and drink the spirit breath'd
"From dead men to their kind.

"You look round on your mother earth,
"As if she for no purpose bore you,
"As if you were her first-born birth,
"And none had liv'd before you!

"One morning thus by Esthwaite lake,
"When life was sweet, I knew not why,
"To me my good friend Matthew spake,
"And thus I made reply:

"The eye it cannot choose but see,
"We cannot bid the ear be still;
"Our bodies feel where'er they be,

"Against or with our will.

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CHAP, V.

This spirit was not only given to man as a teacher, but as a primary and infallible guide-Hence the Scriptures are a subordinate or secondary guide— Quakers, however, do not undervalue them on this account-Their opinion concerning them.

THE spirit of God, which we have seen to be thus given to men as a spiritual teacher, and to act.in the ways described, the Quakers usually distinguish by the epithets of primary and infallible. But they have made another distinction with respect to the character of this spirit; for they have pronounced it to be the only infallible guide to men in their spiritual concerns. From this latter declaration the reader will naturally conclude, that the scriptures, which are the outward teachers of men, must be viewed by the Quakers in a secondary light. This conclusion has indeed been adopted as a proposition in the Quaker theology; or, in other words, it is a doctrine of the society, that the spirit of God is the primary and only infallible, and the scriptures but a subordinate or secondary guide.

This proposition the Quakers usually make out in the following manner :

It is, in the first place, admitted by all Christians, that the scriptures were given by inspiration, or that those who originally delivered or wrote the several parts of them, gave them forth by means of that spirit, which was given to them by God. Now in the same manner as streams, or rivulets of water, are subordinate to the fountains which produce them; so those streams or rivulets of light must be subordinate to the great light from whence they originally sprung. "We cannot, says Barclay, call the scriptures the principal fountain of all truth and knowledge, nor yet the first adequate rule of faith and manners; because the principal fountain of truth must be the truth itself, that is, whose certainty and authority depend not upon another."

The scriptures are subordinate or secondary, again, in other points of view, First, because, though they are placed before us, we can only know or understand them by the testimony of the spirit. Secondly, because there is no virtue or power in them of themselves, but in the spirit from whence they came.

They are, again, but a secondary guide; because "that, says Barclay, cannot be the only and prin

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