At this meeting Elias Hicks followed Ann Jones in vocal communication. He made no direct reference to what she said, the short sermon being largely a reiteration touching the inner revelation to the souls of men, as the reprover of sin, and the power which kept from sinning, as against the outward, sacrificial form of salvation. In closing his remarks, Elias Hicks made this statement: "I do not wish to detain this assembly much longer, but I want that we should cast away things that are mysterious, for we cannot comprehend mystery. 'Secret things belong to God, but those that are revealed (that are understood), to us and our children.' And those that are secret can never be found out by the prying of mortals. Do we suppose for a moment--for it would cast an indignity upon God to suppose that he had laid down any name except his own by which we can have communion with him. It is a plain way, a simple way which all can understand, and not be under the necessity to go to a neighbor, and to say, 'Know thou the Lord? for all shall know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them,' as said Jeremy the prophet. It is bowing down to an ignorant state of mind, to suppose that there is no other power whereby we can come unto God, but by one of the offspring of Abraham, and that we have need to go back to the law which was given to the Israelites, and to no other people. He has never made any covenant with any other people, but that which he made with our first parents. That is the covenant that has been made with all the nations of the earth. "He justifies for good and condemns for evil. And although every action is to be from the operation of his power, yet he has given us the privilege to obey or disobey; here now is a self-evident truth; as they have the liberty to choose, so if they do that which is contrary to his will, and so slay the Divine life in the soul: and thus they have slain the innocent Lamb of God in the soul, which is the same thing. All that we want, is to return to the inward light in the soul. The Lord had declared beforehand unto them in plain characters, that none need to say, 'Know ye the Lord? for I will be merciful to them, I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.' This was equally the case until the law was abolished: until he blotted out the handwriting of the law, and put an end to outward ordinances. The law was fulfilled when they had crucified him, then it was that that law was abolished that consisted in making their atonements which all had to make.