this way by them, has been confined to some attempts at the civilization of some Indian tribes, and the meliorating of the condition of the Africans.* §31. CONCLUSION.-The force of prejudice and sectarian pride may retain a principle even after it has been proved to be of pernicious tendency. But self-defence will prompt some change in the form at least, of management. The society have certainly discovered, of late years, that their illiterate prophets, with all the advantage of immediate objective revelations," are not the best qualified in the world for their public defence. They have not, however, given up their hereditary antipathy to the sciences; and although they have no learned members zealous enough to undertake their defences, most fortunately they have funds, and these funds, though barred, for reasons of principle against the Missionary and Bible societies, are freely unlocked in the cause of Quakerism. These funds paid liberally for the gratuitous distribution of ten thousand copies of the "Apology," and eight thousand copies of Wyeth :‡ and in later times it has been no less liberal. It will form a curious era in letters, if their enemies in London should contrive to excite a tumult against the Friends, by a fresh exposure of avarice or monopoly of corn; the writers of the Fleet and of Grub street, who hire out their literary talents for a "consideration," will soon discover, if they have not already fortunately discovered, that the wealthy members of the society have become the patrons of science, and are much more liberal in paying for any thing in their line, than the most of the modern Mecanases, to poets and pamphleteers! It is certain that with the exception of the amiable and revered Tuke, their defendants in the latest conflicts have been men not of their society. The antagonist of the bishop of Litchfield and • The extent of their influence in putting down that most execrable traffic in human beings, the African Slave Trade, we cannot strictly define. They gloriously roused up the public mind to a sense of the evil; and then acted nobly and firmly in concert with the statesmen and christian public of the United States and Britain. "Palmam qui meruit, ferat.” † Barclay. Against Leslie's "Snake in the Grass. See Bugg. Pict. of Quak. p. 102, &c. Coventry, was a polite and candid man ; but he was not a Quaker.* And about the close of the eighteenth century and somewhat later, when the public indignation against the English Quakers was running so high that they could not venture with safety to appear in the streets of London, and when some defence was no longer a matter of choice with them, their anxiety and "some particular aid," called forth two writers to their sinking cause.§ They were not Quakers when they entered the field, but they probably wrote themselves into that faith. Bristed, of the inner temple, and who could draw up a brief, was the one: he appeared in 1805, with his pitiful production sighing forth as many apolo, gies for his want of time, and his defects, as for those of his afflicted clients. Thomas Clarkson who deserves the surname of Africanus, for his illustrious labours in behalf of bleeding Africa, was the other.¶ This amiable man was unsettled in his religious opinions, when his labours for Africa introduced him among the Friends. He had contented himself with those undefined sentiments on religion, which float in the society of the mere men of letters, and among the persons who move in the gay circles: he found the Quakers his faithful auxiliaries in the great cause of outraged humanity, and like every other man who has not studied his Bible, nor the creeds and canons of the church, he drew the inference that the religious opinions of an amiable and humane people must of course be orthodox, and the very best. To this conclusion he was gradually drawn as his admiration of their efforts increased, and as they entwined themselves around his affections by their hospitable attentions. Hence the fact, that his book contains a portraiture of their doctrines, not drawn from their works, the only correct source, but from his impressions and * See his Letters to the Bishop of L. and C. A. D. 1733. The crime which the public laid to their charge was the monopolizing of corn, &c. D. Bacon's verbal statement, and Evans's Narrat. Philad. 1811, p. 236. Evans's Nar. 263, &c. &c. § Bevan published a small duodecimo, in A. D. 1800. "A Refutation of some Misrepresentations," &c. It is a hurriedly written and superficial thing, without one new idea. !! See his "Society of Friends, or people called Quakers Examined," 8vo. one vol. Portraiture of Quak. 3 vol. 12. feelings, with the meagre gleanings of conversation. He does not quote, because he had not read the folios of the society. "Thus say the Quakers," is the usual authority. It is all, in general, that he vouchsafes to give us ; in vain we look into his loose and defective representations, for a character of the first Friends, or for the doctrinal system of Penn and Barclay. He neither attempts the one, nor explains the other Yet defective as it is, we consider his book valuable on one account, it does, in no obscure manner, confirm the fact that the amiable Tuke has erred in his representation of the doctrines of his society.* Clarkson does prove that the society is as Sabellian and as Socinian as it ever was, and that they have, with the holy sacraments, erased from their system, the leading doctrines of christianity. In fact, his pages confirm all the charges which the venerable bishop of St. David has brought forward against them. We produce the following theological system of this, the last of their champions, as the proof of what we have said. The spirit that had appeared in the old creation, is the word or the light. This spirit, or word, was in time made flesh. “It inhabited the body of the person Jesus." The same spirit or word is in man, with this difference, that it was perfect in Jesus, it is in man in a measure. This spirit acts not only as a guide to man, it performs the office of a redeemer. It's rising up within, is man's new birth. This birth is his sanctification, and this is the procuring cause of his justification and acceptance. This, meagre as it is, is sufficient to show that the present doctrines of the English and American Friends, agree with those of Penn's "Sandy Foundation," and of Job Scott's Journal. § 32. On the whole, the society of Friends exhibit a singular phenomenon in the history of the human mind, and of the progress of refinement and knowledge. The society bears the honoured name of Christ. It's doctrines are the dogmata of Plato and Saccas; its language is the consecrated language of the Bible; * Tuke's Principles, &c. of Quakers, and Christian Obs." July, 1814. See his "Charge to his Clergy." Sep. 1813, and Christian Obs. May 1814. Clarkson's Port. vol. ii. ch. 7, &c. compared with F. Nowgill's sentiments. Sewel, vol. ii. p. 220. Phil. Ed. 1811. `its ideas attached to this language are at antipodes with the analogy of faith, and the creeds of all the churches. It renders homage to the name of Christ; the Christ they honour “is in every man." It professes to rest on the atonement of Christ; the atonement which it advocates is wrought out in the bosom of every member of the sect.* It professes to retain the purest system of christianity, and in that system, there is no place found for the holiest doctrines of the Bible, the trinity, the distinct personality of the Holy Ghost; the distinct personality of our Lord, the real atonement by his blood shed on Calvary ; and all those doctrines built on those as their necessary basis. It professes the highest veneration for the institutions of Christ; it rejects the holiest of them, baptism and the Lord's supper. It professes to be the most spiritual society: if we neutralize all that in the system which has been derived from the mystics, there will remain the residuum of an imposing but unsubstantial morality-imposing in the eyes of men, and not without its purposes and uses; but unsubstantial when weighed in the balance of the sanctuary before the throne of justice. It professes to believe that each of its members has in him the true Christ, the infallible spirit which alone does teach and guide him; yet it has its outward teachers, and its meetings for discipline. Its leaders pour out a torrent of raillery against Socinians; yet Socinianism is one of the most prominent features of its doctrinal system.‡ It rejects the ministry as "made by man," because they arrive at their office through a course of study and by a license; and it censures its members who venture to preach without license from the select meeting of its ministers.§ It brands our ministry with the appellation of "hirelings," because according to the will of their Lord, "they live by the gospel ;|| and it advocates the pro * Compare Penn ii. p. 231 and p. 530. † Clarks. Port. vol. 1. p. v. p. 1. See Part II. and chap vii. following, on the doctrines of the society. Compare Penn's Tract called " The Winding Sheet, &c." with his books Reasoning against Railing,” and “The Sandy Foundation." See the Snake, &c. sect. 11. 66 86 "The monthly meeting are advised to select such under the denomination of elders." Sum. of Hist. Discip. of Friends. Lon. 8vo. p. 27. Rathbone's Narrative, p. 156. Christ. Observer, vol. 12. p. 602, and vol. 13, p. p. 99, 112. 1 Cor. ix. 13, 14, Gal. vi. 6. 1 Tim. v. 17. priety of supporting its own, though in a penurious manner.* Its preachers speak only by the motions of inspiration; yet elders are appointed to superintend and regulate them in the meetings. One party claiming infallibility sets up meetings of men and women for discipline; another party with the same claims puts it down as intolerant. One class under this infallibility excommunicates its brethren for dissenting from them; the other with equal infallibility (the evidence of each is the same) and with the zeal of those days when pope opposed pope, returned the fulmination. As if heaven would become a party in their innovations, Fox produced an inspiration to determine the orthodox use of the "hat, and of thee and thou." As if heaven did not regard contradictions, Penn tells us that Fox was not sent to teach the propriety of speech. It professes itself an enemy to external forms: none are more tenacious of forms-none more precise than they, even in the minor points of dress and speech. They profess themselves Friends to all, on the broad basis of a liberal charity and they denounce the ministry of all the churches; they denounce all christians but those of their own sect. On the score of religion they will neither grant nor receive any communion; they will admit of no interchange of christian fellowship. They withdrew to such an immeasurable distance from the lovely practice of charity, that they will neither give nor take a "God's speed" in the matters of religion.§ Nay, such is their opinion of even the best of their fellow men, that they persecute even to expulsion, and with a species of civil pains, those members who marry individuals from any other christian society.}} It professes that the worship of God is offered by the immediate movings of the Spirit, who is not limited to place, time or persons.T Yet it has not only its stated ministers, but its meeting houses, * Barclay, Theses. xl. and see Part ii. ch. 4, following. † Fox Jour. i. 113. and Penn ii. p. 119. See the proofs in "Snake in the Grass," sect. 16. Hence it is evident that the title of Friend, [which Clarkson thinks so lovely; but which makes no approximation to the affectionate title of Brother, used by the ministers of Jesus Christ] has no connexion with religion; it has merely a temporal bearing, or it is simply an empty compliment, used habitually by these enemies of all titles and compliments, when addressed by them to any one out of their society. See the statement above in sect. 26. |