Page:Some Reflections on the Importance of a Religious Life.djvu/19

 up arms, or fight on any occasion: they abstained from the many political commotions of the times in which they lived: they confided in divine protection, and experienced it in a remarkable manner: they trusted in the Lord and were not confounded.

In the Gospel we are taught to deny ourselves, to take up the cross, to love not the world, nor the things that are in the world. Hence they thought it consistent with this denial, with this taking up of the cross, with avoiding the love of the world, not to follow its spirit and its vain and fluctuating fashions, not to adopt complimentary, flattering modes of expression, inconsistent with truth and Christian simplicity: hence arose their practices in speech, behaviour, and apparel.

Our early friends believed that all typical and figurative observances were for ever abolished, by the coming of the Lord Jesus in the flesh; that the dispensation of the Gospel is spiritual; and that the kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. And, after a careful examination of the New Testament, they did not apprehend that either water-baptism, or partaking of the bread and Wine, constitute an essential part of the religion, of Christ, instituted by him as ordinances, to be kept in all ages of his church; they therefore did not adhere to these practices.