You would no doubt think me very daring were I to say that your own faith is as bad as the faith of devils; and yet, admitting the truth of your own assertion, I can prove it by testimony, which, to you at least, ought to be conclusive. For in your letter to Thomas Willis, before alluded to, you declare your belief in the Scripture account of our Saviour's birth from your _reliance_ on _tradition_, although it is contrary to your judgment. If then that faith which a child admits and believes to be true from a firm reliance on the wisdom and experience of a pious father, is as bad as the faith of devils; how are we to describe the faith of that man who gives to tradition such supreme control, as to make a reliance on it a point of duty, although a belief in it, is contrary to his deliberate judgment. This is one of the instances of the wanderings of your imagination, and the strange inconsistencies into which your metaphysical divinity leads you: and I cite it as a proof of the pernicious consequences of substituting mystical reveries in the place of the simple religion taught by Jesus Christ; and not to censure your reliance on the faith of your predecessors: for I truly believe that did you, like many of them, endeavour to preserve your mind in that meek and lowly state recommended by His example and precepts, all propensity to curious speculation on hidden things would be suppressed, and when called to testify to your faith, you would be ready "always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you, with _meekness and fear_." In alluding to the reasons which prevent many Friends from taking a part in the governments of the earth, instead of ascribing them to that peaceable principle which does not permit them to be agents in any measures connected with war, you denounce the governments of this world as standing _eternally_ in opposition to the government of the God of heaven; and this because all laws made in the wisdom of man are foolishness with God: yet you acknowledge them to be necessary, although you say it is no reason why the law of the Almighty should not prevail, which would take away the necessity of all other laws.[49] Footnote 49: Sermons, p. 198. This reasoning is as confused, as the conclusion to which it leads is extraordinary. How laws in opposition to the will of the Almighty can be necessary, when there is no reason why his law should not prevail, you have not explained; and if human governments are in eternal opposition to the government of God, and yet are necessary, then is there not only a necessity for man's being in eternal opposition to God's will; but the necessity is a justification of it, and your argument, if sound, affords a complete vindication of the persons engaged in the administration of those governments.