Excerpt from Brief Account of the Rise of the Society of Friends

In tracing the history of, the Christian Church from its earliest establishment, through the period of its decline, until it reached that long and dark night of apostacy which for ages preceded the Reformation, we find, that in proportion as the life and substance of religion decayed, a multitude of ceremonies were introduced in their place, little, if at all, less onerous than the typical institutions of the Mosaic law. This has ever been the result when the ingenuity of man has attempted to improve or adorn the simplicity of spiritual religion. There is a natural activity in the human mind which prompts it to be busy, and can with difficulty submit to that self-renunciation which the Gospel enjoins. It is much easier for a professor of religion to be engaged in the performances of rites and ceremonies than to yield his heart an entire sacrifice to God. Objects presented to the mind through the medium of the natural senses produce a powerful impression, and are more easily apprehended than those truths which are address ed to the intellectual faculties only, and are designed to sub due and control the wayward passions of the human heart. It is not surprising, therefore, that instead of that worship of the Almighty Father which is in Spirit and in Truth, and which requires the subjection of the will and activity of man, and the prostration of the whole soul in reverent humility be fore God, a routine of ceremonies and forms should have been substituted, calculated to strike the eye and the ear with admiration.

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