Measureless are the uncovenanted blessings of God; and to these the
Friends have ever borne a witness of power; but now the Calvinist
intruder no longer divides the sheep from the goats in our
churches; now the doctrine of universal brotherhood and the respect
due to all men are taught much more effectively than when George
Fox refused to doff his hat to the Justice; the quaint old speech
has lost its significance, the dress would imply all the vainglory
that the wearer desires to avoid; the young Quakers of this
generation are no longer 'disciplined' in matters of the common
social life; yet still they remain separate.
We of the outward and visible covenant need them, with their
inherited mysticism, ordered contemplation, and spiritual vision;
we need them for ourselves. The mother they have left yearns for
them, and with all her faults--faults the greater for their
absence--and with the blinded eyes of their recognition, she is
their mother still. "What advantage then hath the Jew?" asked St
Paul, and answered in the same breath--"Much every way, chiefly
because that unto them were committed the oracles of God." What
advantage then has the Churchman? is the oft repeated question
today; and the answer is still the answer of St Paul.
The Incarnation is the sum of all the Sacraments, the crown of the
material revelation of God to man, the greatest of outward and
visible signs, "that which we have heard, which we have seen with
our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have handled of
the word of life.
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