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    Sir , July 3 , 1825 . 1 AM obliged to your American correspondent for the notice he has taken of my letter on the proposed American Quaker Creed , ( pp . 325 , 326 , ) in his Critical Synopsis of the Monthly Repository for Juney 1824 .

    He says , " I hope this writer means not to be satirical , when he compares reason to the solar light , and revelation to a lamp enlightening reason ' s path /' In the passage alluded to ( X 1 X . 33 . 9 ,

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    the press , substituting * << r soiar" for " sober , " which , though pointed out for correction with- my next article , dated July 30 , 1824 , inserted p , 544 ' has not , I believe , been noticed in your journal . It would have been utterly inconsistent with the whole tenor

    and object of the letter , to compare " reason / ' though one of tlie best gifts of God of man , * ' to the soiar light , "' and € t revelation to a lamp enlightening reason ' s path . " My aim was to preserve in your pages the proposed inaccurate , inconsistent and

    unscripturai creed , " as a useful warning against any similar departure from the sober path of reason , enlightened by the lamp of genuine revelation . " That is , to hold up the Scriptures as containing " a true record of special revelations from God , " which the authors of this Creed did not appear to me to treat with proper respect and veneration , under the groundless notion of their own equal , if not superior , claim to inspiration .

    Your correspondent aiso observes , " The change of " him" into " himself , " in the 5 th article of the Quakers Creed , seems , at first sight , " atrocious" And how does he attempt to remove the character of this first impression , so much more severe than mine ? By shewing that they were well warranted in taking such a liberty with the language of the text , Matt , xi . 27 ; Luke x . * 22 ? No such thing . But , says he , " when we remember for a moment their sincere and undoubting belief in the identity of the Father and the Son , it can scarcely be called the literary or c \ en pious fraud it seems to be . " Whether your correspondent be " satirical" or serious in this apology I am unable to deckle ; but in my strictures I confined myself to plain matters of fact , and to pointing out the dangerous consequences of making so very free with the text , apparently to make it comport better with the notions of these Creed-makers , who

    were preparing a yoke for their brethren , which the Society , m its collective capacity , wisely , and with great unanimity , rejected . I ought , perhaps , to mention , that in both editions of the 4 € Cabinet , or Works of Darkness brought to Light , " printed in Philadelphia , the above texts are given correctly , and may , therefore , have been

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    tianity itself . For Judaism and Chris . tiatiity are inseparably connected . They are merely parts of one and the same system . Every page of the New Testament bears testimony to the connexion , and contains some acknowledgment , direct or indirect , of the

    divine origin of Judaism . Jesus himself declares , that he came not to destroy the law or the prophets , but to fulfil them . ( Matt . v . 170 Continual appeals are made to Moses and the

    prophets as his forerunners , and their predictions are repeatedly alluded to or cited as having received their accomplishment in him . The fulfilment of prophecy , the completion of that series of divine communications , the

    commencement and progress of which are recorded in the Old Testament , is uniformly represented as the great purpose of his mission . For he is not brought forward to our notice simply as a divinely-commissioned teacher , but as the Messiah , who had been long

    foretold and expected : and this title , which designates his office and character , and his claim to which it appears to have been the main object of his miracles and resurrection to establish ; this title , be it observed , has a retrospective meaning , and implies a

    previous revelation . By destroying , therefore , the evidence of that previous revelation , we strike at the very root of Christianity itself , which , is no other , in fact , than Judaism under an improved form . To admit the

    divine authority of Jesus , and , at the same time , to deny that of Moses and the prophets , to whom he so frequently appeals , appears to me a strangely inconsistent scepticism , which requires from your correspondent some further explanation . X a

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    404 * American Quaker Creed .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1825, page 404, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2538/page/20/