The Quakers again understand by these expressions of the Apostle, which is the point insisted upon in this chapter, that human reason, or the spirit of man which is within him, and the divine principle of life and light which is the spirit of God residing in his body or temple, are so different in their powers, that the former cannot enter into the province of the latter.  As water cannot penetrate the same bodies, which fire can, so neither can reason the same subjects as the spiritual faculty.

The Quakers, however, do not deny, that human reason is powerful within its own province.  It may discover in the beautiful structure of the Universe, and in the harmony and fitness of all its parts, the hand of a great contriver.  It may conclude upon attributes, as belonging to the same.  It may see the fitness of virtue, and deduce from thence a speculative morality.  They only say that it, is incompetent to spiritual discernment.  But though they believe the two spirits to be thus distinct in their powers, they believe them, I apprehend, to be so far connected in religion that the spirit of God can only act upon a reasonable being.  Thus light and the power of sight are distinct things.  Yet the power of sight is nothing without light, nor can light operate upon any other organ than the eye to produce vision.

This proposition may be farther elucidated by making a comparison between the powers of men, and those of the brute-creation.  An animal is compounded of body and instinct.  If we were to endeavour to cultivate this instinct, we might make the animal tame and obedient.  We might impress his sensitive powers, so that he might stop or go forward at our voice.  We might bring him in some instances, to an imitation of outward gestures and sounds.  Bat all the years of his life, and centuries of life in his progeny would pass away, and we should never be able so to improve his instinct into intellect, as to make him comprehend the affairs of a man.  He would never understand the meaning of his goings in, or of his goings out, or of his pursuits in life, or of his progress in science.  So neither could any education so improve the reason of man into the divine principle of light within him, as that he should understand spiritual things; for the things of God are only discernible by the spirit of God.

This doctrine, that there is no understanding of divine things except through the medium of the divine principle, which dwells in the temple of man, was no particular notion of George Fox, or of the succeeding Quakers, though undoubtedly they have founded more upon it than other Christians.  Those, who had the earliest access to the writings of the evangelists and apostles, believed the proposition.  All the ancient fathers of the church considered it as the corner stone of the Christian fabric.  The most celebrated of the reformers held it in the same light.  The divines, who followed these, adopted it as their creed also; and by these it has been handed down to other Christian communities, and is retained as an essential doctrine by the church of England, at the present day.