Morally defective traits-First of these is that of Obstinacy-this was attached also to the early Christians-No just foundation for the existence of this trait.

I COME now to the consideration of those which I have denominated Morally Defective Traits.

The first trait of this kind, which is attached to the character of the Quakers, is that of an obstinate spirit.

It was

This trait is a very antient one. observed, in the time of George Fox, of the members of this Society, that they were as "stiff as trees ;" and this idea concerning them has come down to the present day.

The origin of this trait must be obvious to all. The Quakers, as we have seen, will neither pay tithes, nor perform military service, nor illuminate their houses, like other people, though they are sure of suffering by their refusal to comply with custom in these Now when individuals, few in number, become singular, and differ from the

cases.

world

world at large, it is generally considered that the majority are in the right, and that the minority are in the wrong. But obstinacy may be defined to be a perseverance in that which is generally considered to be wrong.

This epithet has attached, and will attach, to those who resist the popular opinion, till men are better educated, or till they lose their prejudices, or have more correct and liberal notions on religion. The early Christians were themselves accused of obstinacy, and this even by the enlightened Pliny. He tells us, that they would not use wine and frankincense before the statues of the emperors, and that "there was no question that for such obstinacy they deserved punishment *."

In judging of the truth of this trait, two questions will arise: First, Whether the Quakers, in adhering rigidly to those singularities which have produced it, are really wrong as a body of Christians? and, Secondly, Whether they do not conscientiously believe themselves to be right?

* Pervicaciam certè et inflexibilem obstinationem debere puniri."

In the case of the early Christians, which has been mentioned, we who live at this day have no doubt that Pliny put a false estimate on their character. We believe them to have done their duty, and we believe also that they considered themselves as doing it, when they refused divine honours to the emperors. The action, therefore, which Pliny denominated obstinacy, would, if it had been left to us to name it, have been called inflexible virtue, as arising out of a sense of the obligations imposed upon them by the Christian religion.

In the same manner we may argue with respect to the Quakers. Who, for example, if he will try to divest himself of the prejudices of custom, and of the policy of the world, feels such a consciousness of his own powers, as positively to pronounce that the notions of the Quakers are utterly false, as to the illicitness of wars under the Christian system? The arguments of the Quakers on this subject are quite as good, in my apprehension, as any that I have heard advanced on the other side of the question. These arguments, too, are unquestionably much more honourable to Christianity, and

much

much more consistent with the nature and design of the Gospel-dispensation. They are supported also by the belief and the practice of the earliest Christians. They are arguments, again, which have suggested themselves to many good men who were not Quakers, and which have occasioned doubts in some instances, and conviction in others, against the prejudice of education and the dominion of custom. And if the event should ever come to pass, which most Christians expect, that men will one day or other turn their swords and their spears into plough-shares and pruning-hooks; they who live in that day will applaud the perseverance of the Quakers in this case, and weep over the obstinacy and inconsistency of those who combated their opinions.

But the question after all is, Whether the Quakers believe themselves in this, or in any other of their religious scruples, to be right as a Christian body? If there are those among them who do not, they give into the customs of the world, and either leave the Society themselves, or become disowned. It is therefore only a fair and a just presumption, that all those who continue in

the

the Society, and who keep up to these scruples to the detriment of their worldly interest, believe themselves to be right. But this belief of their own rectitude, even if they should happen to be wrong, is religion to them, and ought to be estimated so by us in matters in which an interpretation of Gospel-principles is concerned. This is but an homage due to conscience, after all the blood that has been shed in the course of Christian persecutions, and after all the religious light that has been diffused among us since the reformation of our religion.

CHAP