In the first discourse in the volume now before me, which was delivered at Friends' meeting house in Mulberry street, your principal objects appear to be, to depreciate the value of the Scriptures, and to disprove the account of the miraculous birth of our Saviour. On the first subject it may hereafter be proper to make some observations; to the latter I shall now give my attention. After several allusions to the birth of our Saviour, you come forward and explicitly state your own belief; and unlike those who have preceded you in this path, and who have endeavoured to destroy our faith in the miracle, by arguments drawn from the Scriptures, you take a shorter road, and declare _it is impossible_. You say "By the analogy of reason, _spirit cannot beget a material body,_ because the thing begotten, must be of the same nature with its father. _Spirit cannot beget any thing but spirit, it cannot beget flesh and blood._ No, my friends, it is impossible."[5] Footnote 5: See discourse delivered at Friends' meeting house, in Mulberry street, page 11. I have in a former letter referred to this assertion, and had you confirmed the opinion which I then intimated, that it was a hasty expression, and uttered without your perceiving its tendency, I should not again allude to the subject. But you found yourself seated between the horns of a dilemma. If you admitted it was an inconsiderate expression, you abandoned your high claim to inspiration; and if you re-affirmed it, in its obvious meaning, it would be an adoption of principles which I sincerely hope you do not entertain; and you have endeavoured to escape by an explanation which, although it narrows the meaning, does not relieve it from the stain of impiety; and is a proof, (if any further proof is wanting,) that such a course cannot proceed from the inspirations of the spirit of truth.