Jesus Christ, as he was sitting at Jacob’s well, and talking with the woman of Samaria, made use of the following, among other expressions, in his discourse:  “Woman, believe me, the hour cometh when ye shall neither, in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.  But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth.”

These expressions the Quakers generally render thus:  I tell you that a new dispensation is at hand.  Men will no longer worship at Jerusalem more acceptably than in any other place.  Neither will it be expected of them, that they shall worship in temples, like the temple there.  Neither the glory, nor the ornaments of gold and silver and precious stones, nor the splendid garments of the High Priest, will be any parts of the new worship that is approaching.  All ceremonies will be done away, and men’s religion will be reduced simply to the worshipping of God in spirit and in truth.  In short, the Quakers believe, that, when Jesus came, he ended the temple, its ornaments, its music, its Levitical priesthood, its tithes, its new moons, and sabbaths, and the various ceremonial ordinances that had been engrafted into the religion of the Jews.

The Quakers reject every thing that appears to them to be superstitious, or formal, or ceremonious, or ostentatious, or spiritless, from their worship.

They believe that no ground can be made holy; and therefore they do not allow the places on which their Meeting-houses are built to be consecrated by the use of any human forms.

Their Meeting-houses are singularly plain.  There is nothing of decoration in the interior of them.  They consist of a number of plain long benches with backs to them; There is one elevated seat at the end of these.  This is for their ministers.  It is elevated for no other reason, than that their ministers may be the better heard.  The women occupy one half of these benches, and sit apart from the men.

These benches are not intersected by partitions.  Hence there are no distinct pews for the families of the rich, or of such as can afford to pay for them:  for in the first place, the Quakers pay nothing for their seats in their Meeting-houses; and, in the second, they pay no respect to the outward condition of one another.  If they consider themselves, when out of doors, as all equal to one another in point of privileges, much more do they abolish all distinctions, when professedly assembled in a place of worship.  They sit therefore in their Meeting-houses undistinguished with respect to their outward circumstances, [138]as the children of the same great parent, who stand equally in need of his assistance; and as in the sight of Him who is no respecter of persons, but who made of one blood all the nations of men who dwell on all the face of the earth.

[Footnote 138:  Spiritual officers, such as elders and overseers, sit at the upper part of the Meeting-house.]