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"Know ye not your ownselves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates *?" Now no person imagines that St. Paul had any idea, either that the body of Christ was in himself, or in others, on the occasions on which he has thus spoken.

That Christ therefore, as he held the offices contained in the proposition, was the Spirit of God, we may pronounce from various views which we may take of him, all of which seem to lead us to the same conclusion.

And first let us look at Christ in the scriptural light, in which he has been held forth to us in the fourth section of the seventh chapter, where I have explained the particular notions of the Quakers relative to the new birth. God may be considered here as having produced, by means of his Holy Spirit, a birth of divine life in the soul of "the body which had been prepared," and this birth was Christ. "But that which is born of the Spirit," says St. John, “is Spirit t." The only question then will be as to the magnitude of the Spirit thus pro

* 2 Cor. xiii. 5.

† John iii. 6.

duced.

duced. In answer to this, St. John says, "that God gave him not the Spirit by

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thing: "For in him all the fulness of the Godhead dwelt bodily t." Now we can have no idea of a Spirit without measure, or containing the fulness of the Godhead, but the Spirit of God.

Let us now look at Christ in another point of view, or as St. Paul seems to have viewed him. He defines Christ "to be the Wisdom of God and the Power of God ." But what are the Wisdom of God and the Power of God, but the great characteristics and the great constituent parts of his Spirit?

But if these views of Christ should not be deemed satisfactory, we will contemplate him, as St. John the Evangelist has held him forth to our notice. Moses says that the Spirit of God created the world. But St. John says that the Word created it. The Spirit therefore and the Word must be the same. But this Word he tells us afterwards, and this positively, was Jesus Christ.

It appears therefore from these observa

*John iii. 34. + Coloss. ii. 9.

1 Cor. i, 24.

tions, that it makes no material difference, whether we use the words "Spirit of God," or Christ," in the proposition that has been before us, or that there will be no difference in the meaning of the proposition either in the one or the other case; and also that if the Quakers only allow, when the Spirit took flesh, that the body was given as a sacrifice for sin, or that a part of the redemption of man, as far as his past sins are forgiven, is effected by this sacrifice, there will be little or no difference between the religion of the Quakers and that of the objectors, as far as it relates to Christ *.

* The Quakers have frequently said in their theological writings, that every man has a portion of the Holy Spirit within him; and this assertion has not been censured. But they have also said, that every man has a portion of Christ, or of the Light of Christ, within him. Now this assertion has been considered extravagant and wild, The reader will therefore see, that if he admits the one, he cannot very consistently censure the other.

CHAP

CHAPTER X.

SECTION I.

1

Ministers The Spirit of God alone can make a minister of the Gospel-Hence no imposition of hands, nor human knowledge, can be effectualThis proposition not peculiarly adopted by George Fox, but by Justin the Martyr, Luther, Calvin, Wickliff, Tyndal, Milton, and others-Way in which this call by the Spirit qualifies for the ministry-Women equally qualified with men― How a Quaker becomes acknowledged to be a minister of the Gospel.

HAVING now detailed fully the operations of the Spirit of God, as far as the Quakers believe it to be concerned in the instruction -and redemption of man, I shall consider its operations, as far as they believe it to be concerned in the services of the church. Upon this Spirit they make both their worship and their ministry to depend. I shall therefore consider these subjects, before I proceed

proceed to any new order of tenets which they may hold.

It is a doctrine of the Quakers, that none can spiritually exercise, and that none ought to be allowed to exercise, the office of ministers, but such as the Spirit of God has worked upon and called forth to discharge it; as well as that the same Spirit will never fail to raise up persons in succession for this end.

Conformably with this idea, no person, in the opinion of the Quakers, ought to be designed by his parents in early youth for the priesthood; for as the wind bloweth where it listeth, so no one can say which is the vessel that is to be made to honour.

Conformably with the same idea, no imposition of hands, or ordination, can avail any thing, in their opinion, in the formation of a minister of the Gospel; for no human power can communicate to the internal man the spiritual gifts of God.

Neither, in conformity with the same idea, can the acquisition of human learning, or the obtaining of academical degrees and honours, be essential qualifications for this office for though the human intellect is so

great,

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