It is impossible, they
would say, for a man to be virtuous, or to be in love with virtue,
except he were to lay aside his vicious practices. The first step to
virtue, according both to the Heathen and the Christian philosophy, is
to abstain from vice. We are to cease to do evil, and to learn to do
well. This is the process recommended. Hence prohibitions are necessary.
Hence sub-causes as well as causes are to be attacked. Hence abstinence
from vice is a Christian, though it may be a sluggish, virtue. Hence
innocence is to be aimed at by an ignorance of vice. And hence we must
prohibit all evil, if we wish for the assistance of the moral governor
of the world.
But if the system of filling the heart with virtue were ever practicable
of itself, that is, without the aid of prohibitions, yet if it be to be
followed by allowing young persons to pass through the various
amusements of the world which the Quakers prohibit, and by giving them
moral advice at the same time, they would be of opinion, that more
danger would accrue to their morality, than any, which the prohibitions
could produce. The prohibitions, as far as they have a tendency to curb
the spirit, would not be injurious, in the opinion of the Quakers,
because it is their plan in education to produce humble, and passive,
and obedient characters; and because spirit, or highmindedness, or high
feeling, is no trait in the Christian character.
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