it is from God. All his revelations have had the seal both of in- ternal and external evidence. And when the believer is assured, by the testimony of the Spirit, of the truths of Scripture, he has only a new kind of evidence of what is already authenticated be- yond all rational contradiction. Our blessed Lord himself said to the Jews, " If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the woi-ks." (John X. 37, 38.) He even goes so far as to say, " If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin." (John xv. 24.) The inward teaching and testimony of the Spirit are Scriptural truths, and truths of inestimable value. But it is ruinous to put them in the place of the divinely authenti- cated written Word.
The Doctrine productive of Evil. 5. Our Lord says of men, " By their fruits ye shall know them." The same rule of judgment applies to doctrines. • Mysticism has always been productive of evil. It has led to the neglect or under- 'valuing of divine institutions, — of the Church, of the ministry, of the sacraments, of the Sabbath, and of the Scriptures. History shows that it has also led to the greatest excesses and social evils. The Society of Friends has in a good degree escaped these evils: but it has been by a happy inconsistency. They have not carried out their principle. For, while they teach that the inward revela- tions of the Spirit present the " formal object " of faith ; that they are clear and certain, forcing " the well-disposed understanding to assent, irresistibly moving it thereto ; " that they are the primary, immediate, and principal source of divine knowledge ; that they are not " to be subjected to the examination either of the outward testimony of the Scriptures, or of the natural reason of man, as to a moi'e noble or certain rule or touchstone ; " ^ yet they also teach that nothing not contained in the Scriptures can be an article of faith ; that we are bound to believe all the Bible teaches ; that everything contrary to its teaching is to be rejected as " a delusion of the devil," no matter from what source it may come ; and that the Scriptures are the judge of controversies among Cliristians ; and thus they, as a society, have been preserved from the excesses into which Mystics have generally run. Nevei'theless, the Mystical principle of immediate, objective revelation of truth to every man, as his principal and primary rule of faith and practice, has wrought with Friends its legitimate fruit, inasmuch as it has led to compar- ative neglect of the Scriptures and of the ordinances of the Church. 1 Barclay's Second Proposition,