the Body of which Jesus Christ is the Holy Head and High Priest, will be likely to be bound together in the fellowship of the Gospel-but when under the profession of the guidance of the Spirit, such sacred truths as the miraculous birth and death of our Saviour, for our sakes, are denied; then such a departure from the soundness of the Faith, would be watched over, as a fond parent would watch over a diseased limb in a child, and lest the wound should spread, and the vital functions should become injured, true affection would lead the parent to consent to the amputation of the limb, that the life of the child might be spared. So would gospel love lead the living members of the Church, after using every means in their power to restore such a minister, to remove him from the body of the Society, lest, it also should become diseased.

That no Society could exist so as to know the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, if its ministers did not all eat the same spiritual meat, and drink the same spiritual drink, having faith in God, and in Jesus Christ whom he hath sent, proving their faith by their works. And the work of the ministry is one of the most important tests by which living faith can be proved. A. B. stated in the course of her communications, that she knew herself to be but a child in experience, yet in that love which casts out fear, she believed it her duty to speak the truth in boldness to one whom she desired to entreat as a father. E. H. repeatedly told her, that it was want of experience which prevented her views being similar to his-that he thought light was progressing, and that we need not recur either to our early Friends, or to the Scriptures, in these days. A. B. thought that whenever any new gospel should be preached than that of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, which she believed would never be the case, such corroborating testimonies would be afforded, as conspicuously attended the ushering in of the new covenant dispensation. She asked E. H. what greater enlargement he could desire, than attended the apostle Paul after his memorable conversion, when all his faculties, under the sanctifying power of Divine Grace, were so eminently enlarged and directed to the allotted field of labour he was introduced into.

A. B.

B

The foregoing comprehends the views held out by A. B. though they may not be the exact words, nor nearly the whole of what she had to say to E. H.

The first conversation occurred at E. H's. 1st mo. 21, 1824; the second in the 3d month.following. Ann Shiply was her companion, and was present at each time.

MY DEAR FRIRND,

Jericho, 9th mo. 27th, 1824.

Thy very acceptable letter of the 29th ultimo came duly to hand, and I have taken my pen not only to acknowledge thy kindness, but also to state to thee the unfriendly and unchristian conduct of A. Braithwaite towards me, not only as relates to that extract, but in her conversation among Friends and others, traducing my religious character, and saying I held and promulgated infidel doctrines, &c.-endeavouring to prejudice the minds of Friends against me, behind my back, in open violation of gospel order. She came to my house, as stated in the extract thou sent me, after the quarterly meeting of ministers and elders at Westbury in first month last. At that meeting was the first time I saw her, which was about five or six months after her arrival in New York. And as I had heard her well spoken of as a minister, I could have had no preconceived opinion of her but what was favourable, therefore, I treated her with all the cordiality and friendship I was capable of. She also, from all outward appearance, manifested the same, and after dinner, she requested, in company with A. S., a female Friend that was with her, a private opportunity with me. So we withdrew into another room, where we continued in conversation for near two hours. And being innocent and ignorant of any cause that I had given on my part for the necessity of such an opportunity, I concluded she had nothing more in view than to have a little free conversation on the state of those select meetings.

But, to my surprise, the first subject she spoke upon, was to call in question a sentiment I had expressed in the meeting aforesaid, which appeared to me to be so plain and simple, that I concluded the weakest member in our society, endued with a rational understanding, would have

seen the propriety of. It was a remark I made on the absence of three out of four of the representatives appointed by one of the preparative meetings to attend the quarterly meeting. And I having long been of the opinion, that much weakness had been introduced into our society by injudicious appointments, I have often been concerned to caution Friends on that account. The remark I made was this: that I thought there was something wrong in the present instance-for, as we profess to believe in the guidance of the Spirit of Truth as an unerring Spirit, was it not reasonable to expect, especially in a meeting of ministers and elders, that if each friend attended to their proper gift, as this Spirit is endued with prescience, that it would be much more likely, under its divine influence, we should be led to appoint such as would attend on a particular and necessary occasion, than to appoint those who would not attend.

This idea she contended was not correct, and the sentiments she expressed on this subject really affected me. To think that any, professing to be a gospel minister, called from a distant land to teach others, and to be so deficient in knowledge and experience, in so plain a case, that I could not well help saying to her, that her views were the result of a want of religious experience, and that I believed if she improved her talent faithfully, she would be brought to see better, and acknowledge the correctness of my position. But she replied she did not want to see better. This manifestation of her self-importance lowered her character as a gospel minister very much in my view; and her subsequent conduct while she was with us abundantly corroborated and confirmed this view concerning her. As to her charge against me in regard to the Scriptures, it is generally incorrect, and some of it false. And it is very extraordinary that she should manifest so much seeming friendship for me, when present, and in my absence, speak against me in such an unbecoming manner. Indeed, her conduct towards me, often reminds me of the treachery of Judas, when he betrayed his master with a kiss. And, instead of acting towards me as a friend or a Christian, she had been watching for evil.

As to my asserting that I believed the Scriptures were held in too high estimation by the professors of Christian

ity in general, I readily admit, as I have asserted it in my public communications for more than forty years, but, generally, in opposition to those that held them to be the only rule of faith and practice; and my views have always been in accordance with our primitive Friends on this point. And at divers times when in conversation with hireling teachers (and at other times) I have given it as my opinion, that so long as they held the Scriptures to be the only rule of faith and practice, and by which they justify wars, hireling ministry, predestination, and what they call the ordinances, viz: water baptism and the passover supper, mere relicts of the Jewish law, so long the Scriptures did such, more harm than good, but that the fault was not in the Scriptures, but in their literal and carnal interpretation of them—and that would always be the case until they came to the Spirit that gave them forth, as no other power could break the seal and open them rightly to us. Hence

I have observed, in my public communications, and in conversation with the members of different denominations, and others, who held that the Scriptures are the primary and only rule of faith and practice-that, according to the true analogy of reasoning, "that for which a thing is such, the thing itself is more such "- —as the Spirit was before the Scriptures, and above them, and without the Spirit they could not have been written or known. And with this simple but conclusive argument, I have convinced divers of the soundness of our doctrine in this respect-that not the Scriptures but the Spirit of Truth, which Jesus commanded his disciples to wait for, as their only rule, that would teach them all things, and guide them into all truth, is the primary and only rule of faith and practice, and is the only means by which our salvation is effected.

The extract contains so much inconsistency, and is so incorrect, that, as I proceed, it appears less and less worthy of a reply, and yet it does contain some truth. I admit that I did assert, and have long done it, that we cannot believe what we do not understand. This the Scripture affirms, Deut. xxix, 29—" The secret things belong unto the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong unto us and our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law"-and all that is not revealed, is to us the same as a nonentity, and will for ever remain so, until

it is revealed; and that which is revealed, enables us, agreeably to the apostle's exhortation, to give a reason of the hope that is in us, to honest enquirers. I also assert, that we ought to bring all doctrines, whether written or verbal, to the test of the Spirit of Truth in our own minds, as the only sure directer relative to the things of God; otherwise, why is a manifestation of the Spirit given to every man, if it is not to profit by; and, if the Scriptures are above the Spirit, and a more certain test of doctrines, why is the Spirit given, seeing it is useless. But this doctrine, that the Scriptures are the only rule of faith and practice, is a fundamental error, and is manifested to be so by the Scriptures themselves, and also by our primitive Friends' writings. It would seem that A. B. has strained every nerve in exagerating my words, for I have not said more than R. Barclay, and many others of our predecessors, respecting the errors in our English translation of the Bible. Hence it appears, that she was determined to criminate me at all events, by striving to make me erroneous for saying that the Gospel handed to us, was no more authentic than many other writings. Surely, a person that did not assent to this, must be ignorant indeed.

Are not the writings of our primitive Friends as authentic as any book or writing, and especially such as were written so many centuries ago, the originals of which have been lost many hundred years; and are not the histories of passing events, written by candid men of the present age, which thousands know to be true, as authentic as the Bible.

Her assertions, that I asked her if she could be so ignorant as to believe in the account of the creation of the world, and that I had been convinced for the last ten years, that it was only an allegory; and that it had been especially revealed to me at a meeting in Liberty-street about that time; that I asked her if she thought Adam was any worse after he had eaten the forbidden fruit than before, and that I said I did not believe he was; and also her asserting, that I said that Jesus Christ was no more than a prophet; and that I further said, that if she would read the Scriptures attentively she would believe that Jesus was the son of Joseph: these assertions of hers, are all false and unfounded, and must be the result of a feigned or forced construction of something I might have said,

B 2