are even more liberal, and more Pelagian; and S. Fuller has gone as far as any man can venture, in mingling the system of Saccas with that of Pelagius, and of Arminius, to suit the modern taste.* § 19. Each of these periods has produced its authors. Each has its partizans. Hence the great diversity of sentiment, even to this day, in the society. We meet with the undefinable dogmata of Fox, the Sabellianism of Penn, the mystico-Arminianism of Barclay. In later times, Job Scottt advances the Sabellianism of Penn. At a still later date, we find the mystico-Sociniano-Arminianism of the society, on the dull pages of Clarkson, and the silly pages of Bristed. Hence the society can, with a clear conscience, adhere to the declaration which they made in the year 1699; "We have not flinched from the tenets of our ancient elders." § 20. Under the first of these periods, though not confined to it, appeared those bodily phenomena, which imposed on them the name of Quakers. Their speakers "had hideous contortions, and violent motions of their limbs." They whined and hummed their discourses in a confused imitation of singing; and occasionally, with uplifted face, "they bellowed as they'd burst the heavens," and fell down in an ecstacy. These bodily affections are thus described by an eye-witness :--They fell down, they heaved their breasts as if they would burst; they quaked, they foamed at their mouth; they were convulsed as if their limbs would be thrown into pieces."§ Penn accounts thus for these "holy tremblings:"—" The Quakers were overtaken by the mighty hand of God; great were their pangs, under the terrors of the Lord.”"Being redeemed through judgment, they became ministers of * "Serious Reply" to Boyce. Dublin, A. D. 1728. † 1792. See Rathbone's Narrative, and Job Scott's Journal. Faldo's Quakerism, &c. p. 11, 12. $"Stablishing against quaking," published in 1656. See the "Petition of a county against the Quakers," in the "Snake in the Grass," p. 21, No. 1474, duod. Phil. Lib. See Fox's "Saul's Errand to Damascus," p. 5, ancient ed. Warner's Eccles. Hist. ii. p. 581, ed. Lond. 1756, fol. Clarkson and others, in the usual penury of their views, gravely tell us, that the society were called Quakers, because Fox called upon the Justice Bennet to tremble at the word of the Lord! On this supposition, Mr. Justice Bennet should have been the Quaker. judgment to others. The terrors of it struck thousands. The devils trembled, and all flesh was as grass ;" and "did not the devils roar and tremble, when about to be cast out by a stronger than themselves."* Barclay also makes honourable mention of these spasmodic affections. He ascribes them to the violent collisions between "the good seed and the bad seed." When Satan strives to excite the one, and the spirit strives, by a counter influence, to raise the other, the combat is carried on with varied success. The frail vessel which contains the fierce combatants, trembles, and is convulsed; and it is not till after fearful quakings, that the song of victory bursts forth.t These bodily phenomena are purely Platonic. That ancient sect held, that the soul, in its struggles to ascend to its pure light and intellect, meets with violent opposition from the corrupt matter of the body. "During these struggles, an evil spirit" (Barclay calls it "the spirit of darkness”‡)“ is insinuated into the place of the Divine. And what will not the soul suffer under the pressure of such an evil ?"§ Those theologians, who modelled this Platonic principle into a christian form, made three sorts or degrees of contemplation. The first is purely intellectual; the se; cond is confined exclusively to the affections; the third is a compound of the other two. To the second class, says Hilton,|| belongs a peculiar "vocal prayer,” in which, “a man feeling the grace of devotion, speaks to God, as it were, bodily in his presence, with words suiting his inward stirrings." "This is painful to the spirit," says he, " and wasting to the body. For it makes the body move here and there, as if the man were mad or drunk, and could have no rest."T On these principles of the Platonics, are engrafted the very * Faldo wittily remarked, that "people having taken the Quakers to be possessed of the devil, when so behaving, Mr. Penn has here confessed that they are not mistaken; and more than this too, that they themselves are devils. For it was they only that roared." Penn calls this a "frothy reply," vol. ii. 322, 334. † Apology, Prop. xi. sect. 8. Apol. Prop. x. sect. 7. & Synesius, a Platonic Phil. and a prof. Christian. See Taylor's Plat. ii. p. 276. A Carthusian, in his "scale of perfection," written for the mother of King Henry VII. of England. See Dr. Wettenhall's "Gifts and Offices, &c." p. 167, No. 1650, duod. Phil. Libr. opposite practices of two modern sects. The one is that of the dancers; whom this principle carried forth into the merriest gestures in devotion. They sung, they danced, they jumped with unparalleled vivacity. They threw the ancient revels of Bacchus completely into the shade. This sect is perpetuated by a sect of dissenting Quakers in the United States. The other sect is that of the tremblers. The convulsive agonies in their worship were, in all respects, similar to those of the priestess of Apollo, when thrown from her tripod by the agitations "of the God within ;" and to those of the ancient Syrian priests, mentioned in the pages of Apuleius. "They raved and sighed. They drew their breath from their very bowels. At length, they fell down in a phrenetic fit; pretending to be replete with the spirit of the goddess." The same bodily affections were observed among the Jews at Rome, and other places, in the year 1613.† The convulsions of Apollo lasted with various fame, during the glory of the Delphic oracle. At last, that spirit left his shrine. The quakings of the Syrian priests also ceased. So these "holy tremblings," which commenced about the year 1650, went on briskly till 1660. These ancient tremblings were completely outdone by them. Those of the priestess could bear no comparison. Here were the spasms of the delicate female. But in the society, not only little children and women, but robust men were thrown into "hideous contortions." In the former case, a solitary person filled the temple of the idol with groans and shrieks. In the latter, prostrate hundreds covered the place, as in a day of slaughter. And if any credit can be given to an author, who was an eye-witness of what he relates, so great was the combat between "the good seed and the bad seed," and so hideous were the groans and the yellings, that in a field adjacent to a meeting, the herds of cattle, and swine, and dogs, ran about as if mad: and each joining in the notes which Nature has given them, they swelled the chorus into something super-human.§ 66 Totus autem simul bacchatus est mons." *Boileau's Hist. of the Flagellantes, ch. 6, 86, No. 3117, octavo, Phil. Library. t By Sir E. Sandy's "View of Relig. in the West," p. 241. Bar. Apol. Prop. XI. sect. 8, p. 374. And "Snake, &c." p. 24. Fox "Saul's Errand," p. 5. And Besse, vol. ii. p. 2. No. 270, folio, Phil. Libr. § "Snake, &c." p. 300, No. 1474, duod. Phil. Library. But, as in its ancient precedent, this spirit began to evaporate. From the year 1660 it gradually declined; and about 1697, it almost entirely disappeared.* And in subsequent periods, and even until lately, the preachers had some dregs of this turbulent spirit. They quaked, they shuddered, and heaved up words with hollow groans from the "fund of the soul;" but still they kept on their feet. And in our times, in Philadelphia, there have been specimens of violent shruggings of the shoulders, and brachial twitches, and prodigious wry faces, and thumpings on the pews. These, however, are not so much the effects of the Delphic spirit, as the unnatural efforts of a mind in travail, when it has nothing to bring forth! "Vixque tenet lacrymas, quia nil lacrymabile cernit." OVID. § 21. During the first period, and also the second, the zeal of their prophets carried them into extravagances of another kind. To give a brilliancy to their denunciations, and to rouse the public attention, they taught by signs. Some of them went into churches, during service, clothed in sackcloth, and their hair sprinkled with ashes. Two females entered the protestant church in Dieppe, in France, took their station in a conspicuous place, and turning round in solemn silence to every quarter of the church, exhibited their clothing in sackcloth, and their heads covered with ashes. Barclay, with all his learning and talents, was not a match for the sweeping spirit of fanaticism. This great man actually fell into the rank of the raving fanatics, and marched through the streets of Aberdeen in sackcloth.§ A female in sackcloth and ashes denounced woes against the wicked town of Kendal. Huntington, robed in a linen sheet, surmounted with a halter, round his neck, instead of a cravat, stood as a spectacle to the gaping audience of Carlisle church.¶ A female in the garb * Snake, &c. p. 295. In the island of Formosa priestesses officiate in the pagan rites of the altar. During their devotional services, they exhibit all the trances, tremblings, and convulsions of ancient Delphi. See Rechteren's Voyage to the E. Indies. Brought. Dict. of all Relig. ii. p. 359. + Sewel, vol. ii. p. 176. They made a pilgrimage from England før this purpose alone. S Biog. Brit. art. Barclay, and his Life, p. 25. Fox, Jour. ii. 65. of sackcloth, and having her streaming hair covered with ashes, passed to the different gates of Bristol; with courage peculiar to prophetesses, she stood during half an hour at the centre of the market place; the graceless mob, however, pelted her, and she retreated.* Anne Wright, having in the same garb made her debut, into St. Patrick's in Dublin, entered on a pilgrimage to London, and went in these weeds through the chief streets, as a sign of approaching judgments. But to crown the whole, these prophets appeared in public in a state of nudity. During the Commonwealth, and in the reign of Charles II. several individuals of the society went in naked processions through the streets of London.‡ A female came, in a state of perfect nudity, into Whitehall chapel, before the Protector.§ The most distinguished of these Lupercalian heroes were Eccles and Simpson. In London the former appeared naked in the fair: and held on in his lectures and denunciations against folly, till the loud whips of the coachmen made him seek safety in flight. At another time, he threw a catholic chapel in Ireland, into a scene of confusion. In the midst of mass, this lupercus entered naked from the waist upwards, with a chafing dish on his head, containing coals and burning brimstone; and he cried with a doleful voice, "wo, wo, to the idols and its worshippers!" His third fete was performed in a church in London. During divine service he came in stark naked; and raising his arms besmeared with filth, he denounced the woes of heaven on the worshippers.T Simpson continued his naked processions, from time to time, during the space of three years !** The society are not original in any prominent part of their doctrinal or practical system. In this licentious practice they had their precedents. The east had its gumnosophists. Marc Antony, as well as others, acted the lupercus at Rome.†† Greece Besse's Suff. of the Quakers, i. p. 41. † Penn, ii. p. 77, 78, &c. Fox, Jour. ii. p. 65. § Neal's Hist. of the Puritans, vol. iv. ch. 3. p. 175. Bost. edit. Mosh. vol. v. cent. 17. Hist. of the Quakers. Sewel has omitted this fact for obvious reasons. I cannot with the Christ. Obser. (vol. xiii. p. 101.) give this up. It is stated by Neal, who was conversant with the men of that period; and though stated publicly by him, it never was questioned till lately, so far as I can discover. Sewel, ii. 226. **Fox's Jour. i. 531. tt Liv. Hist. lib. i. Leslie, Snake, p. 104, or p. 101 ed. 2d. |