died soon after. His fate is held up as an example of God's “jns judgment upon the persecutors of his people." p. 347. At Lancaster, Daniel Fleming is told to take heed, lest the hand of the Lord be turned against him for having imprisoned the servants of the Lord: "it was not long after this, ere Fleming's wife died, and left him thirteen or fourteen motherless children." p. 362. At Southampton, he tells 'some Ranters, that "the plagues and judgments of God would overtake them," which accordingly took place, p. 399. "He that was then Mayor of Cork, being very envious against truth and friends, had many friends in prison; and knowing I was in the country, he sent four warrants to take nie: therefore, friends were desirous that I might not ride through Cork. But being at Bandon, there appeared to me in a vision, a very ugly-visaged man, of a black and dark look. My spirit struck at him in the power of God, and it seemed to me, that I rode over him with my horse, and my horse set his foot on the side of his face." p. 407. We are not told what became of this Mayor of Cork. At Droitwich, a wicked informer was coming from the justices with a warrant against a friend, when he fell off his horse, and broke his neck: "the Lord prevented him, and cat him off in his wickedness." p. 422. Nor is this power of denouncing divine judgment confined to George Fox. We are told, among other instances of the sanie kind, of Susan Frith, 64 a friend of Chesterfield," who was moved of the Lord, to tell him" (the justice), that "if he continued in his persecuting of the innocent the Lord would execute his plagues upon him. Soon after which he fell distracted and died." p. 389.

After these quotations, it seems scarcely to require any farther proof, that George Fox, and the primitive Quakers, considered themselves as the subjects of direct and immediate inspiration; that they re

garded themselves as favoured, not merely with those blessed visitations of the Holy Spirit of grace and truth which all true Christians acknowledge as the only source of spiritual light and peace; not merely with those Divine influences which alone can convince the soul of sin, lead it to Christ, and renew it in all holy obedience; but with immediate, palpable, intelligi ble communications of the will of the Almighty, wholly independent of any reference to Scripture. If there remain any doubt on this subject, the following extracts must remove it.

At page 20, George Fox tells us, "The Lord God let me see, when I was brought up into his image in righteousness and holiness, and into the paradise of God, the state how Adam was made a living soul, and also the stature of Christ, the mystery that had been bid from ages and generations." "The Lord God opened to me by his invisible power, how every man was enlightened by the divine light of Christ." This I saw in the pure openings of the light, without the help of any man ; neither did I then know where to find it in the Scriptures, though afterwards searching the Scriptures, 1 found it." "On a certain time, as I was walking in the fields, the Lord said unto me. Thy name is written in the Lamb's book of life, which was before the foundation of the world;' and as the Lord spake it, I believed and saw it in the new birth." Then, after mentioning some of the main doctrines which he" was sent forth into the world to preach" by "the Lord God and his Son Jesus Christ," he adds, "These things I did not see by the help of man, nor by the letter, though they are written in the letter; but I saw them in the light of the Lord Jesus Christ, and by his immediate Spirit and power, as did the holy men of God by whom the holy Scriptures were written. Yet I had no slight esteem of the Holy Scrip tures: they were very precious to

me; for I was in that Spirit by which they were given fortb; and what the Lord opened in me, I afterwards found was agreeable to them." p. 21.

"Moreover, when the Lord sent me into the world, he forbad me to put off my hat' to any, high or low; and I was required to thee and thou all men and women, without any respect to rich or poor, great or small. And as I travelled up and down, I was not to bid people good morrow, or good evening, neither might I bow or scrape with my leg to any one. This made the sects and professions rage. But the Lord's power carried me over all." p. 22.

"power of God," and who, therefore, "Blew like chat before him," "so dreadful was the power of God in him." (see pp 148, 153, 157, 160, 200, 201, 205, &c.). In short, he maintains, that friends had the same power and spirit that the apostles bad and were in." and that "in that power and spirit the Lord gave us dominion over all," p. 331. And he instructs friends not to let "the sons and daughters, nor the handmaids, be stopped in their prophesyings, nor the young men in their visions, nor the old men in their dreams, but let the Lord be glorified in all." p. 249.

We shall content ourselves with two more extracts under this head.

"As I was in bed at Bristol, the word of the Lord came to me, that

But on the subject of steeple houses, there appears to have been a pretty general commission given to" friends;" for we learn, page 246, that about this time (1657), "friends that were moved of the Lord to go to the steeple-houses and markets, to reprove sin, and warn people of the day of the Lord, suf fered much hardship from rude people, and also from the magistrates." And in a letter to "friends," written by George Fox himself, in 1658, he admonishes them thus: "When any shall be moved to go to speak in a steeple-nouse or imarket, turn into that which moves, and be obedient to it; that that which would not go may be kept down: for that which would not go will be apt to get up." p. 271.

"The Quakers," we are frequently told, " dwell in the eternal power of God." Fox often speaks of himself as passing on "in the dreadful power of God;" of friends, as dwelling in the power of God," of those who resisted this

and

morning Alexander Parker and several others came to me. I asked them, What they felt? They asked me, What was upon me? I told them, I felt I must return to London. They said, the same was upon them. So we gave up to return to London; for which way the Lord moved and led us, thither we went in his power." p. 395.

"After this meeting in Glouces tershire, we travelled till we came to Bristol; where I met with Margaret Fell, who was come to visit her daughter Yeomans. I had seen from the Lord a considerable time before, that I should take Margaret Fell to be my wife; and when I first mentioned it to her, she felt the answer of life from God thereunto. But though the Lord had opened this thing to me, yet I had not received a command from him for the accomplishing of it then. Wherefore, I let the thing rest and went on in the work and service of the Lord, according as he led me; tra velling in this nation, and through Ireland. But now being at Bristol, and finding Margaret Fell there, it opened in me from the Lord, that the thing should be accomplished." p. 412.

It may be objected, however

that these notions on the subject of divine communications, are confined toGeorge Fox, and perhaps a few other individuals of that day of " excessive zeal." But this is not the case. They are embraced without reserve by William Penn, who in bis Preface to this very work, bears his unequivocal testimony to their truth and genuineness. Nay, in "the Minutes and Advices of the Yearly Meetings of Friends" published in 1802, aud published expressly for the regulation of the Society at large, ministers are exhorted (p. 90) minister the word faithfully, as it is manifested and revealed to them." In the same work we find various other passages to the same effect; and among them the following, which, it will be admitted, confirms the view we have given of this subject, while it touches also upon another peculiarity of Quakerism.

"to

"Our testimony against tithes and forced maintenance in this Gospelday, being received from Christ, our Head and High Priest, is not of our own making or imposing, nor from the tradition of men; but what we have from him by whose divine power we were raised up to be a people, and by which we have been preserved to this day, knowing that his ministry and Gospel are free, according to his own express command, Freely ye have received, freely give.""

Equally unambiguous is the testimony of Robert Barclay, who in his "Apology" contends strenuously, • that inward and immediate revelation is the only sure and certain way to attain the true and saving knowledge of God," p. 26; and that "the inward and immediate revelation of God's Spirit, speaking in, and unto, the saints, was by them believed as the ground and foundation of their hope in God and life eternal." And "the same continueth to be the object of saints' faith auto this day." p. 37.

It is true, that Barclay, in contending for this doctrine of immediate revelation, makes his appeal to Scripture, and cites ia abundance

such passages as these: " If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his." "No man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost." But to assume that these and such like texts affirm the necessity of direct and immediate revelation, is begging the whole question.

We are as eager as Barclay could be, to maintain the absolute, the indispensable, necessity of the Holy Spirit's agency in every part of the Christian's progress from darkness to light. With our Church we do most unequivocally believe, that it is from God, and from God alone, that " all. holy desires, all good counsels, and all just works do proceed;"-that it is only by "the inspiration of His Holy Spirit," the thoughts of the heart can be cleansed, or we enabled "perfectly to love him, and worthily to magnify his holy name-;" and that it is only by "the working of the Spirit of Christ," that "the works of the flesh and our earthly members are mortified," and our minds drawn up to high and heavenly things." But surely neither the cordial belief and acknowledgment of these essential truths, nor the persuasion we feel that those only are true Christians who receive them and live under their influence, can be regarded as binding us to subscribe to the Quaker doctrine on this subject. They do not bind us to admit the reality of any immediate and inward revelation which may be alleged, whether it respects truths already known through the medium of the Scriptures; or such new topics as the duty of preaching against steeple-houses and tithes, of keeping on the hat in courts of justice, or of substituting thou for you and second day for Monday in common parlance: still less do they bind us in consistency to maintain, on the one hand, that we must wait for an inward sensible movement of the Holy Spirit, before we do what the Scriptures tell us we ought to do, and what, through his holy influences, we have a will to perform; or, on the other, that

we should be justified, by the apprehension of such a movement, in saying or doing any thing, not commanded in Scripture, which should violate the received maxims of prudence and decorum, or should run counter to our sober judgment of what was expedient to be said or done. We believe, indeed, that every good thought, as well as every good word and work, "cometh down from the Father of lights," and that, without him," nothing is strong, nothing is holy;" but yet we believe that no internal movement, which we may fancy that we feel, however powerful that movement may be, would justify us, for instance, in going naked through the streets of this metropolis, for a sign untothe people; in suffering ourselves to be imprisoned, rather than lay aside our hats in a court of justice; or in submitting to distraint, rather than pay tithes on land which we had purchased with the previous knowledge that it was subject to tithes.

Our correspondent observes, that if a comparative estimate were to be formed of the conduct of different religious denominations, during the reigns of Charles the First and Second, he should have little reluctance in taking the part of the Quakers. We are nearly inclined to the same judgment. We certainly think their conduct much less exceptionable than that of many others; than that, for instance, of the Ranters, Muggletonians, FifthMonarchy Men, &c.; or even of those Presbyterians and Episcopalians who persecuted the Quakers. But who now stands up to defend the Ranters, Muggletonians, or Fifth Monarchy Men? Who now attempts to extenuate the persecuting spirit manifested towards the Quakers, either in England or America? Who How vindicates the hypocrisy and cant of the Long Parliament, or the profligacy exhibited, during the same period, by many of the sticklers for high church? Why, then, should the ancient extravagancies

of the Quakers be recorded in massy folios, backed by all the weight which that most respectable society "can give them?

Our correspondent's heaviest charge against us respects our having affirmed, when speaking of "the light of Christ within," that some, in their zeal for the hidden Christ, actually denied the outward Christ, &c. Now, we certainly did not mean to affirm, that in any acknow ledged writings of the Quakers, such sentiments were to be traced. On the contrary, our examination of Barclay's fifteen propositions, and particularly of the 4th, 5th, and 6th, furnishes of itself a reply to such a surmise. What we did mean to say, was, that the unguarded, and, in our view, unscriptural manner in which the light within" was often insisted upon by the founders of Quakerism, had led occasionally to gross errors in their followers. "I was commanded," says George Fox, "to turn people to that inward light, spirit, and grace, by which all might know their sal vation and their way to God." p. 21.

I directed the people" to the spirit and grace of God in themselves, and to the light of Jesus in their own hearts." See pp. 57, 62, 72, 74, 129, 161, 207, &c. &c. "Take heed to the light within you, which is the light of Christ." "That which calls your minds out of the earth, turns them towards God, where the pure Babe is born of the virgin, and the Babe's food is known," &c. "Therefore all friends, the seed of God, mind, and dwell in, to reign. over the unjust; and the power of the Lord dwell in, to keep you clear in your understandings, that the seed of God may reign in you. all; the seed of God, which is but one in all, is Christ, in the mule and female, which the promise is to." pp. 245, 246.

To the same effect William Penn, in his Preface to George Fox's Journal, informs us, that in order to find "the right way to peace with God,” people were directed to the light

་་

of Jesus Christ within them, as the seed and leaven of the kingdom of God." p. vii. The testimony of friends, he adds, "was to the principle of God in man, the precious pearl and leaven of the kingdom, as the only blessed means appointed of God to quicken, convince, and sanctify man. p. ix. "Their main distinguishing point or principle was the light of Christ within, as God's gift for man's salvation." p. x. Again: "The glory of this day, and foundation of the hope that has not made us ashamed since we were a people, you know is that blessed principle of light and life of Christ, which we profess, and direct all people to, as the great instrument and agent of man's conversion to God. It was by this we were first touched, and effectually enlightened, as to our inward state, which put us upon the consideration of our latter end, causing us to set the Lord before our eyes, and to number our days, that we might apply our hearts to wisdom. In that day we judged not after the sight of the eye, or after the hearing of the ear, but according to the light and sense this bless ed principle gave us; we judged and acted in reference to things and persons, ourselves and others, yea, towards God our Maker; for being quickened by it in our inward man, we could easily discern the difference of things, and feel what was right, and what was wrong, and what was fit, and what not, both in refe rence to religion and civil concerns." In the feeling of the motions of this principle, we drew near to the Lord, and waited to be prepared by it, that we might feel those drawings and movings, before we approached the Lord in prayer, or opened our mouths in ministry." pp. xxxi, xxxii.

The Extracts from the Minutes and Advices of the Yearly Meeting, speak in many places the same language; and the effect of these modes of expression, in leading men to form a contracted and somewhat distorted view of the Gospel, must

have been enhanced by such passages as represent redemption and regeneration as synonimous, (see Preface to Journal of George Fox, p. xi.); an error, as we must take leave to call it, to which in his work, entitled "Principles," &c. Mr. Tuke gives his respectable sanction, by describing "Christian Redemption," (p. 184), to signify the being born again. When we see such pious and excellent men, possessing, as they do, a more than ordinary acuteness of intellect, thus confound things so essentially distinct in themselves, as the work of redemption effected by Christ on the cross, and the work of regene ration effected in the heart of the believer by the Holy Spirit, shall we wonder if some men of weak minds should go far beyond their intentions, and should resolve whatever in Christianity is of an outward and corporeal kind, into something inward and spiritual? This, we admit, is an abuse of Quaker principles, but an abuse to which they too easily and naturally lead.

We are very ready to admit, that on the subject of our Lord's divinity, the faith of the Quakers in general, and of our excellent correspondent in particular, is orthodox; yet we think it still true, that there is frequently much ambiguity in the writings of Quakers on this grand point of Christian doctrine, although we do not recollect to have met with any passage which will not bear a favourable construction.

Our correspondent accuses us of unfairness in our citations from Barclay, respecting the inferiority of the Scriptures to the Spirit which gave them forth. We ought, he thinks, to have produced the farther extract which he has presented to

us.

But we, for our parts, cannot perceive that that extract, when produced, impeaches in the slightest degree our statement of Barclay's principles. We did not say, that Barclay argued or allowed that the Divine inward revelatious which