for having gone out into imaginations." The society also
have been apprehensive of the same consequences. Hence one among other
reasons for the institution of the office of elders. It is the duty of
these to watch over the doctrine of the ministers to see that they
preach soundly, and that they do not mistake their own imaginations for
the Spirit of God, and mix his wisdom with the waywardness of their own
wills. They therefore, who believe in the doctrine of the agency of the
Spirit, and at the same time in the necessity of great caution and
watchfulness that they may not confound its operations with that of
their own fancies, will never incur the charge, which has been brought
against the body at large. But if there are others, on the other hand,
who give themselves up to this agency without the necessary caution,
they will gradually mix their impressions, and will, in time, refer most
of them to the same source. They will bring the Divine Being by degrees
out of his spiritual province, and introduce him into all the trivial
and worthless concerns of their lives. Hence a belief will arise, which
cannot fail of binding their minds in the chains of delusion and
superstition.

It is the doctrine of Quakerism again on the subject of dress, that
plainness and simplicity are required of those who profess the Christian
character; that any deviation from these is unwarrantable, if it be made
on the plea of conformity to the fashions of the world; that such
deviation bespeaks the beginning of an unstable mind; and, if not
noticed, may lead into many evils. They therefore, who consider dress in
this point of view, will never fall into any errors of mind in their
contemplation of this subject. But if there are members, on the other
hand, who place virtue in the colour and shape of their cloathing, as
some of the Jews did in the broad phylacteries on their garments, they
will place it in lifeless appearances and forms, and bring their minds
under vassalage to a false religion. And in the same manner it may be
observed with respect to language, that if persons in the society lay an
undue stress upon it, that is, if they believe truth or falsehood to
exist inherently in lifeless words, and this contrary to the sense in
which they know they will be understood by the world, so that they dare
not pronounce them for religion's sake, they will be in danger of
placing religion where it is not, and of falling into errors concerning
it, wh