506 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR; 
a a part of your excellent Magazine 
is appropriated to literary fubjects, 
I beg leave to propofe the following 
queries: By what method may a perfon 
be fuppoied moft likely to acquire a good 
profe ftyle? What are the belt clementary 
books? What authors may be confidered 
as ftandards? and, What are the peculiar 
excellencies of each? 
Leeds, May 16, 1798. - LR: BB. 
\ eT ‘ 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, 
HE difcuffion you have admitted 
into. your Magazine refpecting the 
tenets of the Quakers, is of fufficient im- 
portance to demand a continuation of it, 
whenever any thing may be offered tend- 
ing to elucidate the fubjeét. The public 
profeffion and principles of any public 
body, ought to be generally known, or 
at leaft ought to be fufficiently publithed 
to enable every candid enquirer to find 
eafy and full information about them. 
The Quakers, as a body, have always 
been tolerably affiduous in improving fuch 
Opportunities as have fallen in their way 
to make public the doctrines of their 
faith ; they have preached, and they have 
printed again and again, and if any one, 
at this day, remains ignorant of the leading 
principles of the feét, I think it muft be 
imputed folely to his own fupinels and in- 
difterence towards them. 
It is evident to me, that David Hume 
had no very accurate or fettled notion 
refpecting the principles of the Quakers, 
for’ although, as I. N. juftly fays, he 
¥anks them in one of his eflays amongtt 
Deifts, and very nearly with the difciples 
of Contucius, yet, in another part of his 
works he calls them dire&t enthufiafts: 
as to Guthrie, the reprefentation he gives 
of the Quakers in his oftavo edition, fuf- 
ficiently {ubverts every iota of what he 
ha’ edited inthe quarto. _ 
I. N. (April Mag.) has attempted to 
give ‘<a true fiatement of the religious prin- 
ciples of this fociety,’ and has occupied 
fomewhat lefs then half a pagé of your 
Magazine in ‘the attempt:—thofe who 
know the extreme difficulty of communi- 
cating ideas clearly in metaphyfics and 
theology, will not be furprifed that I. N’s 
«¢ fummary ftatement’’ fhould fall thort 
of conveying that full information which 
an enquirer not previoufly acquainted 
with _the fubjeét would look for: accord- 
mgly we find M.N. (Magazine for May) 
#ill unrefolved and fill enquiring. 
Tenets of the Quakers. 
fAug. 
The Quakers are not Deifts, according: 
to the common acceptation of the term— 
they are not Unitarians:—there is an in« 
fuperable gulph, an inacceflible frontier, 
betwixt deifm and quakerifm, which ren- 
ders their diftant opinions and principles 
totally immifcible, and before a member 
of the one community can become firmly 
eftablifhed in the other, there mutt be zo# 
only a dereliction of fome particular opi- 
nions, and a compromife of fentiment, 
but atotal fubverfion; a revolution in the 
empire of pinion mutt be effeéted, and the 
‘* old man muft be put away.” Why 
M.N. fhould fo far endeavour to retain 
the Quakers under the denomination of 
Deifts, as to make a feét of Deifts on pur- 
pofe to ft them, I cannot tell; but F 
fufpect her < Deifts by revelation,’ will 
not quite fuit the Quakers neither. 
The Quakers do moft affuredly ac. 
knowledge the, divinity of Chrift; but, 
<< how do they acknowledge it ?°—Why, 
they believe that he is co-eternal with the 
Father; that ‘¢ in the beginning was the 
word, and the word was with God, and 
the word was God’’—*‘ before Abraham 
was, I'am ;’’—(but Iam not about to de- 
fend,:or to prove from {cripture, the fru 
of the doétrines held by the Quakers, that 
would lead into a wider field than I pro- 
pofe to myfelf)—they believe in the mi- 
raculous conception and incarnation of 
Chrift, that the divine nature became 
man, and was -in every refpect like unto 
us, “fin only excepted :*—they believe 
in the crucifixion, death, and refurreétion 
of the maz Chri? Fcfus—in the afcenfion 
and prefent exiftence of this divine nature, 
who returned to, and ¢¢ fitteth at the right 
hand of God :°’—but what is to them of 
more importance than all this—they be- 
lieve that this divine nature vifits, at this 
day, the hearts of the children of men; 
that it becomes a light in the cenfcience, 
which is otherwife dark and dead—a ftill 
{mall voice {peaking in the fecret of the 
heart, approving good and condemniag 
evil—the grace of God imparted to man 
—the {pirit placed within. They hold, 
neverthelefs, that this light may be ex- 
tinguifhed, and the fmall voice ftifled by 
the tempelts and buftles of the world ; 
that this gracious bock afforded to frail 
and fallen humanity, may be rendered 
ineficacious and futile:—but to fuch as 
are afliduoufly attentive to it, and culti- 
vate an unremitting acquaintance and 
communication with it, it becomes a per- 
petual ftandard and criterion by which 
every action and every propenfity may be 
trisd and meafured—-a guide and leader 
through 
