the inhabitants of the Borough, where the paper was published, were Quakers, and that Quakerism had given a tone of feeling to all the country round." This statement gives a fair specimen of this author's love of veracity, as exhibited in more than fifty instances in his Letters. I have frequently been astonished, in the course of this discussion, at the utter disregard of truth, so often manifested, by one whose profession as a minister of the Gospel, should have bound him to set an example of great purity in this respect. Now the inhabitants of this Borough may be estimated, in round numbers, at six thousand souls; the members of our Society, at seven hundred and fifty, at most. To these may be added, about two hundred and fifty, who profess our principles, and who are not in strict membership; the sum total will be, I suppose at most, one thousand. If we go into the country four miles round, the proportion of our members to the whole population will be much less; as very few of them live out of the Borough. My opponent tells us, two-thirds are Quakers; but the fact is, that one-sixth at most, including professors, are Quakers. In order to swell his magnanimity in adventuring to attack so formiable a body, he represents us as four times as numerous as we really are! Like the evil spies that were sent to examine the land, he sees giants in his way; and like them, I trust in Providence, he and his fellow craftsmen shall never subdue it!

How far the Quakers have given a tone of feeling to all the country round, I am not able to say. I have no doubt their principles and practice have opened the eyes of many, to see the unscriptural nature, the selfish practices, and dangerous tendency of a hireling ministry; and I have some substantial ground to believe, that the present controversy has happily extended this kind of influence.

My opponent makes a curious flourish on his own calculations. "I calculated," says he, "to be assailed with the epithets of bigot, persecutor, sectarian, uncharitable."-No doubt he had internal data for his conclusions on this subject!-but he says "to accuse me of persecution is not a little ludicrous; did David persecute Goliah ?" Now for what others may have done, I am not accountable. As for AMICUS, I am sure he never accused "PAUL" of persecution. I was not so silly as to accuse him of doing that which he had no power to do!!!

In his statement of the object of his attack on the Society, "PAUL" has made a miserable attempt to impose upon his readers. He wishes the public to believe he had no proselyting scheme in view. But the veil he would draw over the deformity of his scheme, is too short to cover it. While he would hide one end of it, by a cunning attempt to persuade us, that "truth was his object," [see his first Letter] he exposes the other, by an acknowledgment, that he had no intention of giving a systematic statement of orthodox doctrines!!!" Now if "truth was his object," and orthodox doctrines were the doctrines of truth, why did he not intend to give us a systematic statement of them? Truth is altogether lovely: and truth

can never be better promoted, than by exposing her to view in all her native loveliness! As to the allegation, that he only wished "to draw the Quakers from their hiding place," it involves him at once in the guilt of ignorance or fraud. The Quakers have published their sentiments to the world, with unparalleled industry.—In the first sixty years of their existence as a body, they printed and disseminated nearly four thousand different publications, on religious subjects. WILLIAM PENN'S Works, which contain all the sentiments of AMICUs as published in his Letters, have gone through at least four editions, and are widely diffused. The Quakers, both in doctrine and practice, have stood openly before the public for more than one hundred and fifty years! Now if he supposed the Quakers a hidden people, he was grossly ignorant of their real character, as thousands of our fellow Christians in this country can testify. If he knew they were not a hidden people, he is guilty of a low fraud. Let him take which horn of the dilemma he pleases.

He tells us very triumphantly, and prints the sentence in capitals, that "the sentiments avowed by AMICUS are the very sentiments which he wished to fasten on the Society."-He thinks, or pretends to think, that these sentiments are calculated to injure us in the view of the public. But in this he is egregiously mistaken. The sentiments of Friends, on many important points, are now rapidly spreading in the world, and particularly in this country; but in an especial manner, where the public have the best opportunities of information. Whilst the doctrine of Tritheism, or Trinitarianism, with all its shocking and absurd appendages, are notoriously on the wane! Colleges and Universities, the seats of learning, and nurseries of science, have abandoned it, and in many places, whole congregations renouncing it as impious, have openly avowed their change of opinion. And as light and knowledge are extended, as superstition and priestcraft, which for ages, have swayed their ebon sceptre over the intellectual faculties of man, yield to the empire of reason, and the light of divine revelation, the doctrines of Calvinism, like owls, who cannot bear the light, will retire to their native shades, and only be heard or seen by the benighted traveller.

I will now recur to that part of his intended preface, in which he speaks of the soi-disant ordinances of Baptism and the Lord's Supper; in which his prevarication and double dealing are conspicuously evident. It is a remarkable fact, which our readers will perceive by a recurrence to his Letters, that "PAUL" always entered on the different subjects of discussion, with great self-confidence, and an air of triumph. As the discussion progressed, he evidently grew restless and uneasy, gave many tokens of chagrin and disappointment, and at last would openly beg his opponent for a cessation of arms. Thus the subject of Missions was but partially opened by AMICUS, till he challenged him to the field on the subjects of "Baptism," and the "Supper." On these subjects, "PAUL" soon involved himself in the most palpable contradictions, and ludicrous absurdities, and very pathetically begged me to leave them [see

page 152.]-After this we entered on the subject of "Internal Light," of which he became very tired, and tried various means to induce me to leave this interesting topic unfinished; at length, after exposing the unscriptural and selfish nature of a mercenary priesthood, I gratified him by taking up the doctrines of the Athanasian creed. This he considered an impregnable fortress; to use the terms of one of his particular friends: "a high battlement." But to the evident grief of my antagonist, he found it one of his most vulnerable positions!!!-There is no point of scholastic divinity, so fraught with contradictions and palpable absurdities, as this. It contradicts the plainest and most numerous Scripture passages of any other. It puts reason, revelation, and common sense, at defiance, and leaves us to struggle, without a ray of light, in the confused labyrinths of mysticism, a hopeless, helpless prey to spiritual wolves who spare not the flock!!!-From this we passed to Justification by Imputative righteousness;-on this point he would not answer my arguments-indeed he could not; but happily for him, no doubt at his own request,-his friend the Editor interposed, and saved him, and his shattered system, from an exposure, which I was preparing for the public, and which as defendant I was entitled to make, and would have made if the balance of privilege had been equally poised.

These ordinances (Baptism and the Supper,) he told us (see page 16,) were the "seals of God's Covenant, and badges of Christianity, -“of high moment and eternal consequence." In his intended preface, he says, he "never did attach any particular importance to that part of the controversy." I have not time to notice all his contradictions on these subjests, I will therefore refer my readers to his Letters, for further proofs of " PAUL'S" inconsistency! But, why should he wish to prevent the republication of this part of the controversy ?-forsooth to make the book smaller, as "PAUL" would make us believe! The real reason, however, he did not unfold! It is very well known, that the legal nature of these ordinances, and their inconsistency with the Christian dispensation, were so fully proved, that a number of persons felt relieved from their former scruples on these points, and "PAUL" has lost many little odd jobs of sprinkling infant faces with water, in order to seal them with grace, and clothe them with the badges of Christianity!!!

To induce me to leave out this part of the controversy, he says: "If AMICUS really wishes the circulation of the volume, he will not object to this proposition."-Now AMICUs does not wish to circulate a mutilated copy of the controversy! Whether the friends of AMICUS, or those of " PAUL," are most anxious to circulate the work, will be amply tested by the subscription papers. On this ground I am perfectly willing to rest that point!

I can however unite with "PAUL" in the hope that the public will never forget the last six numbers of AMICUS. I really have some doubts, whether "we worship the same God!" AMICUS has denied the "foundation" of Trinitarianism-the division of the Deity

into part-one part standing on the earth and calling to another part up in the clouds!-The murder of the CREATOR by a lawless company of Jews! &c. &c.-The God we worship is one pure Eternal Spirit! infinitely merciful, and of great compassion, pardoning iniquity, transgression, and sin; omnipotent, omnipresent, indivisible, and infinite in wisdom and goodness. These characters do not apply to the object of Trinitarian worship-which of the two is the God delineated in the Holy Scriptures, I am perfectly willing to leave the public to decide!

Of my knowledge of the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin languages, on which PAUL" has so learnedly descanted, I have not much to boast-if I have had enough to meet my profound antagonist with his borrowed lore, the public, I trust, will hold me excused. Those who have more learning than either of us, will discover one fact: that my opponent is a mere plagiarist! he has in a great variety of instances borrowed not only the sentiments, but the very language in which they are clothed!" PAUL" may consider this fact as a proof of his great erudition; a proof which AMICUS cannot much admire!!! one thing is very certain: "PAUL" is wholly ignorant of AMICUS. He has made many attempts to designate him; his last proves him totally in the dark.

As to my statements of "the motives and conduct of my antago nist," I am perfectly willing their truth should be tried by his own publications. It is through this medium only that I know him. Let my readers" take a pen, and as they read erase" every incorrect statement I have made, and I believe their book will be without a blot! or let them prove them in any degree unsound, and I will make a public recantation.

Before I close this essay, I will just observe, that many of the palpable falsehoods from time to time uttered by my opponent, I had not room nor leisure to notice. In fact, they were so numerous, that to refute them would in some instances have occupied all the space allotted me for the principal subject of discussion. But an interesting work has just issued from the press, intitled: "Trut! Advocated; in Letters addressed to the Presbyterians, by VINDEX," which has amply supplied my deficiencies in this respect. To this book I would particularly recommend the readers of this controversy. If the labours of AMICUs has had no other good effect than to induce so able a writer as " VINDEX" to take up his pen, I shal! not have laboured in vain.

2 mo. 14, 1823.

AMICUS.

FINIS.