this seed or light of Friends, either in a way of reprehension or explication or allusion, but the propositions themselves exclude the possibility of its existence. They preached an OUTWARD CHRIST to a world inwardly dark and lost; even "as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness;" they directed men to look out of themselves for salvation, to "Jesus Christ and him crucified," whom they preached as the only hope of the world; they called upon men to exercise "repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ ;" and they fully warned the impenitent and the unbelieving not only of the terrible guilt of their courses, but of eternal damnation as the certain consequence of remaining in them. I will add, if there was any sin that induced the more dreadful denunciations of these missionaries of heaven, it was undoubtedly the sin of corrupting the doctrines of religion. How tremendous are the rebukes of Jesus Christ against the Scribes and Pharisees for neglecting, superseding, or misinterpreting, the holy scriptures! Read the seventh of Mark, and the twenty-third of Matthew, and ponder their meaning, ye who doubt it. Again, take one example of the preaching of Paul, which is applicable too, to all modern corrupters, and tremble for them that vitiate the gospel. Acts, 13; 10. “O full of all subtlety, and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, WILT THOU

NOT CEASE TO PERVERT THE RIGHT WAYS OF THE

LORD?" He then smote him with blindness by miraculous agency; and all this because he "withstood them, seeking to turn away the deputy from

the faith." If it be such sin to "turn away one soul "from the faith," what kind of responsibility is theirs who actually divert thousands from the same? I come now to show

VII. THE FALLACY OF ALL THE EVIDENCE upon which the doctrine affects to be supported by scripture.

This proposition might imply or seem to require that I must follow them in the examination of all the evidence which they adduce, in order to evince its fallacy. But this were perhaps impossible; since there is plainly no end to the perversion of the sense of scripture, by the application to its pages of some fond and false principles of interpretation. There never was a book more susceptible of specious perversion than the Bible. Not that it is waxen and flexible in its own native structure. Just the reverse. But there are many causes which enable a wrongheaded fanciful expounder to wrest its meaning with plausibility and verisimilitude. The ancientness of the style; the peculiarities of the Jewish nation to whom it was first communicated; the facts and usages of oriental antiquity; the dependence of its parts on each other; the truth-fraught boldness of its phraseology; the latitude and strength of its figures; the fulness of its mercy; and other characteristics not to be numbered; so appear on the face of its pages, as to give ample scope to the action of a lawless, theoryloving, imaginative mind, and seem (and only seem) to yield to an influence upon them, all plastic and coercive, which the graceless interpreter ingeniously emits. But let it be remembered that if probation is here, retribution is hereafter. Every thing in the

divine constitution, and the Bible more especially, is purposely designed to try the reins and heart; and while God gives all needed scope to the exercise of our moral powers, and preserves perfect our proper freedom, he proportionately augments our personal responsibility! Wo be to the sinner whose rashness or whose malevolence trifles with the truth of Jehovah and vitiates the meaning of his written oracles! The Bible is capable of the most clear, full, and satisfactory exposition. Holy ingenuousness of heart, and a well disciplined mind, are the grand qualifications of an interpreter. Learning, patience, collateral helps, a knowledge of the hermeneutic art founded as it is on the soundest principles of science, a correct philosophy, and especially a thorough and critical knowledge of the original languages; these are subordinate, but most desirable; and for a public teacher of religion they are to a certain degree indispensable qualifications. May the church be ever saved from the interpretation of 'sincere' and blundering ignorance!

To say this, is consistent for us, who profess an utter indebtedness to the scriptures for all we have of divine revelation. But-Friends-their relation is widely different every way to that Book of Books. One would be likely to inquire why they value scripture supports, conjectured or real, even as much as they appear to do, seeing they are so sublimely furnished, every man "under his own vine and his own fig-tree," with a private supply of paramount authority and excellence! But they do indeed affirm that the scripture teaches their very

doctrine. They name the texts that contain a testimony to their creed of a universal inward light, and refer us to them with as much confidence as if any such doctrine was soberly taught in the word of God; or as if now they believed the Bible to be of supreme authority. I commence by flatly denying their assertion: and am bold to pledge myself that there is not one text in the whole Bible that, in its native and proper import, contains any such doctrine. Nay, more; I aver that any other heresy that ever darkened the air, is just as able to support itself on the basis of the Bible, as the awful, goodlooking, pestilential heresy of Quakerism. The result is that the text must first be perverted in its meaning (and that may be done in many ways) before it favors the doctrine of Friends.

Barclay's sixth proposition, after blaming his Arminian allies, the Remonstrants of Holland, for that in which they had been chiefly wanting, in that, though they had said so many good things that suited him, they have erred in affirming "the absolute necessity of the outward knowledge" of the gospel; (where they were manifestly evangelical and right;) concludes with a censure of them "and many other assertors of Universal Redemption, in that they have not placed the extent of this salvation in that divine and evangelical principle of light and life, wherewith Christ hath enlightened every man that comes into the world; which is excellently and evidently held forth in these scriptures; Gen. 63. Deut. 30: 14. John 1: 7, 8, 9. Rom. 10; 8. Tit. 2: 11."

In this passage of the Apology, and in a very formal part of it, (in a proposition, not the discussion of it, in the conclusion of one of his theses theologicae,) we have some six or seven verses selected from the whole Bible, which-he says-contain the proof that outward knowledge of the gospel is not necessary; that the extent of Christ's salvation is placed in the inward-light principle which is in every man; and all this "is excellently and evidently held forth" in the passages he has cited. To these then let us go, much in the order propounded, to see this blazing and excellent evidence, which, we believe, was all in his own enlightened imagination. After considering these, we shall notice a few other of their vaunted proof-texts. Why should any man be allowed to vend such ruinous imposture, without animadversion?

1. We begin with Gen. 6: 3. "And the Lord said, my Spirit shall not always strive with man; for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years." Barclay's comment, in discussing his proposition, is simply this, so far as interpretation extends; "my Spirit shall not always strive in man; for so it ought to be translated." Why did he not condescend to give us some proof of this? He makes an assertion, bold, new, contrary to received opinion, based on philological criticism or the implication of it, a most important assertion and one fundamental to his internal scheme; and yet, never offers a single particle of proof of his version! This might answer, if he was really inspired to say so: but then he ought