published in 1830; as one of the most improved specimens of Quakerism; in which however, as the last sentence shows, they identify themselves with the whole foxian mass of by-gone inspiration: evincing, what is morally necessary, that any consistent Friend must go the whole, for the system. And why do they exclude the poor Hicksites, who are certainly Quakers, and just as much inspired as was Fox himself! In that famous 'Testimony,' they call the persons of the Godhead, in the sophistical abuse of Penn, "separate and distinct ;" and declare that they "reject the terms " not only, but consider them "as conveying ideas too gross to be admitted;" while they deny all distinct personality to each of "the three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost; and' believe"[that] these three are one." I have endeavored to select the above fairly, as showing their sense of them, altering nothing, except by the hands, which I have placed near passages that I wished to be particularly observed. Let no one forget their 'orthodox' patronage.

Let the reader consider that this impersonal divinity within, is the great leveller and leavener of their system; that whatever it appears, when dressed up in its best to go abroad over "the continent of America," its home character, its matter of fact identity, its real influence and pious practisings every day, "in meeting" and elsewhere, is interior, indefinite, delusive, fanatical, super-spiritual, "unerring," and inspired! In the name of the great God I proclaim-that the system is funda

mentally wrong; it is not christianity; it is an abominable delusion; which it is the duty of all men, AND VERY SACREDLY OF ALL CHRISTIANS, unitedly to reject, deny, and reprove; "having no fellowship" with the works of its "darkness," its pretension, and its pompous folly! All its efforts will not do, for those who have their eyes open and are satisfied with christianity. It is sinking in the waters of its own perturbation; and this conspiracy of yearly meetings," and the charity of the ill-informed, may only avail to elevate it above the wave for a little longer breathing, before it sinks, by its own weight, to rise no more-till the day of judgment! The anathema of the eternal God, "the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost," rests on that system that dares to mystify his revelation, declare it not his word, and tell the world, as one of its 'orthodox' statements on "the continent of America," that the universal inward light is "an unerring guide, and the primary rule of faith and practice;" italicising it themselves, and proclaiming it at the same time "the only medium" of the saving knowledge of God! And this is orthodoxy!-this the stuff which the church of God is required charitably to succor, sanction, fellowship!

Any unprejudiced man of sense can see that it is all nothing but 'orthodox' materialism; with its sensible influences, "the operative power-placed in the heart of every individual; ready to expand— and take the government," no doubt. Very much like the little cramped mainspring of a just-woundup watch, tending mechanically to start all the

wheels, "ready to expand and take the government," and make all the subaltern machinery hum again; if one would just "retire inwardly' and clear the way for it, and unfix the balancewheel of a sound mind. It is ignorant and void of spirituality:-as spiritual as impulse, and sensible influences; as spiritual as clock-work, and the difference between rest and motion; as spiritual as-machinery, stagnant or going, with its "measure of that power, virtue, spirit, life, grace, seed, principle, light within," and so forth: but not so spiritual as-chemistry or common sense. Blind is the dotard who can think it the same with christianity.

I have always observed that when the human mind adopts any false system of religion, it commences its ingenious toils of devout sophistry and specious lying to sustain it. Hence he that either "loveth" or "maketh a lie," turns to it in conformity, and is thereafter sincerely and sinfully deceived: and the lie in turn makes him! O the danger every way, to character, to state, to destiny, of a false system of religion! I regard it as beyond conception or description cursed of God and execrable to saints. I do not say that the advocates of Quakerism know that they are lying: but convinced I am in the sight of God that they might know it! they might but for this-a false system of religion is the most deceitful thing in the world for, it seems as if its helpers were helping God, doing duty, defending holiness, co-operating with Jesus Christ, and performing prodigies of be

neficence. In this way the mind feels, whatever it thinks, as if it was prosperously working its passage' to heaven: hence, the greatest enemy it meets, is one that incorruptly holds the truth and manifests it. Hence the only way to make an opposing demonstration of any value, is to withstand it courageously and with aggressive onset. Half-way measures will only nourish the hydra till more heads are grown. And who knows not that such wisdom is not "from above," and hath its denunciation only in the book of God! That sorry softness with its eyes shut, that asks quarter for error, would, at some safer opportunity, ask license for sin for often the brood of its sympathies are marvellously like "a generation of vipers," whom true benevolence would rather warn to " escape the damnation of hell."

The other topic, on which I design to remark, is that of war and the passive endurance of injuries. Barclay gives the strange views of Friends in the following formal proposition, on which he enlarges ; "That it is not lawful for christians to resist evil, or to war or fight in any case." This is in brief exactly what they profess. Without discussing the voluminous theme, I will state at least some of the results, in which my own conviction rests, in opposition to their views, which I once "verily thought" true.

1. Friends magnify the relative importance of the matter, out of symmetry and against apostolic example. They appear to me, many of them, to place their views of pacification,-just where Paul

puts "Jesus Christ and him crucified;" at the centre of the system. The most important pacification in the world is that with God through the glorious atonement! Thus, often have I conversed with a Friend about the way of salvation—when, instead of any fixity of thought to the point, he would go off at a tangent and with a noise, inquiring, Does thee believe in the lawfulness of war? or that any christian can be a soldier?' Barclay indeed seems to think that the things are totally incompatible; so that the man who can reconcile them, "may be supposed also to have found a way to reconcile God with the devil, Christ with antichrist, light with darkness, and good with evil. But if this is impossible, as indeed it is, so will also the other be impossible; and men do but deceive themselves and others, while they boldly adventure to establish such absurd and impossible things." This, it must be confessed, is not begging the question!

2. They say many things here, which, however true, are not to the purpose: As that war is a great and dreadful evil; that revenge is wrong; and that soldiers are often wicked and revengeful. There is no need of saying what nobody disputes. The question is-Is war, or the taking of life in certain cases, or all sorts of resistance of evil, positively unlawful? and that not "for christians" only, but for all men; so that, if their position be true, it can be done at all by any one, only in a way of sinning against God? This is what I understand them to affirm; and their doctrine, in argument and fact,