It alters the character of Christianity to make it a system of commandments. Give me an express text, says one, and I will bow to it. Now this is an unholy and bad principle. If a child knew the will of its father, and yet demanded some express command before it would obey, that would be a bad child. It is a very common evil of this day to demand an abstract command. If I have the Holy Spirit I must do what I know to be the mind of God—of course checked by the written word—but wherever I have the knowledge of God’s mind it is binding on me.

From Words in Season, vol. 1, 1887, p. 270.
See also Girdle of Truth, vol. 2, 1857, p. 288.