Page:A Beacon to the Society of Friends.djvu/144

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140
FIRST PRINCIPLES.
SER. IX.
ed others."—See the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican.—Luke, xviii. 9-14.


What a solemn warning does the last sentence of the foregoing extract convey to us; not to lay any stress upon our religious feelings, unless they be governed by the faith of the Gospel; for we see how the calm of an infidel, may be brought to react on his mind, and tend to confirm him in his fatal errors.




EXTRACT II.

First principles.

"Oh then that there may be a recurring to first principles! I have, I trust, been led to see these things, in that light that does not deceive me, and will not deceive any one living.—Hence I say, that it is perfectly inconsistent with our profession to take the least part or lot in the governments of the world, so as to be numbered with the nations among whom we live." p. 217.


To the words of the Yearly Meeting of Philadelphia, which in the "Declaration" set forth the danger of the first steps in this insidious course, we cannot but often recur, whilst contemplating this awful delusion, which under the persuasion of following the light within, and professing a recurrence to first principles, goes even to the denying of the Lord who bought us.

To the sincere desire, that there may be a recurring to first principles, every true Christian must respond; but how dangerous is it to suppose, that they