Their opinions also upon the supposed dignity of situations in life
contribute towards the promotion of this independence of their minds.

They value no man, in the first place, on account of his earthly title.
They pay respect to magistrates, and to all the nobility of the land, in
their capacity of legislators, whom the chief magistrate has appointed;
but they believe that the mere letters in a schedule of parchment can
give no more intrinsic worth to a person, than they possess themselves,
and they think with Juvenal, that "the only true nobility is virtue."
Hence titles, in the glare of which some people lose the dignity of
their vision, have no magical effect upon Quakers.

They value no man again on account of the antiquity of his family
exploits. They believe, that there are people now living in low and
obscure situations, whose ancestors performed in the childhood of
history, when it was ignorant and incapable of perpetuating traditions,
as great feats as those, which in its greater maturity it has recorded.
And as far as these exploits of antiquity may be such as were performed
in wars, they would not be valued by them as ornaments to men, of whose
worth they can only judge by their virtuous or their Christian
character.

They value no man again on account of the antiquity of his ancestry.
Believing revelation to contain the best account of the rise of man,
they consider all families as equally old in their origin, because they
believe them to have sprung from the same two parents, as their common
source.

But this independence of mind, which is said to belong to the Quakers,
may be fostered again by other circumstances, some of which are peculiar
to themselves.

Many men allow the independence of their minds to be broken by an
acceptance of the honours offered to them by the governments, under
which they live; but no Quaker could accept of any of the honours of the
world.

Others allow the independence of their minds to be invaded by the
acceptance of places and pensions from the same quarter. But Quakers,
generally speaking, are in a situation too independent in consequence
of their industry, to need any support of this kind; and no Quaker could
accept it on the terms on which it is usually given.

Others again suffer their opinions to be fettered by the authority of
ecclesiastical dominion, but the Quakers have broken all such chains.
They depend upon no minister of the Gospel for their religion, nor