ART. I.-Estimate of the character of George Fox ;-present state and prospects of the Society of Friends.'

(Continued from page 240.)

Had George given every text entire, in these Scripture extracts, it might have been alleged that probably he intended them for any purpose which circumstances might call for: but his omission in so many instances of the part showing the application prevents our allowance of this plea. He intended them plainly to be at hand, in support of his principle and practice of not accepting men's persons by bowing to them, and uncovering his head. Now not one of them applies directly, and but two even remotely, to this particular subject; the two alluded to being those from James and Jude. We must not blame him for this, as for an imposition on the hearers: it was unintentional, and the manner of the age: they took up detached portions of Scripture, regardless of the context, and threw them (as if they had been cushions in fair play) at each other's heads-the party thus attacked defending himself as he could, but on precisely the same principle. And in this instance, it must be confessed, the professor's texts hit the hardest! See Gen. xviii. 2; xix. 1; xxiii. 7. 12; xxxiii. 3; xlii. 6; xliii. 28; xlviii. 12;-patriarchal manners!

The portions of Scripture which I have supplied to these Extracts determine the sense, in many of them, to be the passing of unjust (because partial) judgment in any cause or controversy, before God or man. In others, it is in the matter of Divine worship or sacrifice ;-in two or three, about obedience to the government ;-in one, it is even about assassination! The Scripture proof then, in behalf of this stiffness, on the whole fails; and we must come back to the immediate impression of duty, as from the Lord, upon his own mind.

Barclay, it is observable, uses none of these texts in an argument on the

VOL. V.

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subject, which we find in his Fifteenth Proposition: after rejecting two of the good examples I have cited on the part of our opponents, (as not being a rule to Christians now,) he contents himself with the apostolic advice, not to be conformed to this world; and with the general plea, that kneeling, bowing, and uncovering the head, which constitute the ، alone outward signification of our adoration towards God,' ought therefore to be refused to man. 'Men, being alike by creation, owe not worship one to another, but all equally are to return it to God.' ، The apostle shows us, 1 Cor. xi. 4, that the uncovering of the head is that which God requires of us in our worshipping of him. But if we make our address to men in the same manner, where lieth the difference? Not in the outward signification but in the intention; which opens a door for the Popish veneration of images; [he might have added, or of the walls of an old house'] which is hereby necessarily excluded.' The examples adduced by him of the refusal to accept this honour (by Scripture characters) are to be found in Acts x. 25, 26: Rev. xix. 10, and xxii. 9.

I shall first notice, in answer to Barclay, that place in the Epistle to the Corinthians, where the apostle gives directions for the behaviour of personspraying or prophesying: they who do either with the head covered, dishonour their head : that is, their liege Lord, CHRIST (according to ver 3;) who is considered as ever with the church assembled, to dictate the prophecy (in the Holy Spirit), or to present the prayer to God the Father : but this direction of Paul's applies not, I think, to the case of the worshipper who hears or joins, merely; his act is voluntary, or the result of custom and good feeling; whether he uncover standing, or kneel down. 'He that kneeleth,' however, or prostrates himself to man,' (says Barclay,) 'what doeth he more to God? He that boweth and uncovereth his head to the creature, what hath he reserved to the CREATOR?' Certainly (it may be replied) a very different intention of the mind in the act-which lower intention may be expressed towards the sovereign, or a magistrate, or a neighbour, without the smallest danger of our being drawn by this act, to manifest it also towards a piece of stone! See on this head, vol. ii. 362–6, of this work. Again it may be returned upon Barclay, as to the words used in prayer, he that presents a petition to man, what doeth he more to God? Yet the poor do this every day to the rich; others, to those in trust and offices, and all of us to the Parliament. The words show in such cases that it is not a prayer to a divine person.

However, leaving this where it is, let us examine further into the ground of George's original persuasion in the case: for I believe it was not pretended, by any of those who took up this persuasion after him, that they themselves had any internal divine command to the like effect:and with us of the present day, I believe it is as purely tradition as any observance can be. I suppose, then, that it was needful (seeing Paul himself was not to exercise his ministry without a messenger of Satan to buffet him,) that our Founder and his associates should bear their testimony under circumstances of great humiliation; lest they should be exalted above measure in the tide of success, which, through deep suffering on other or more important grounds, did manifestly attend them: the Holy Spirit bearing witness in the consciences of their countrymen, that they were martyrs in the cause of Christ. While they had to witness, then, against

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war, oaths, and priestcraft, it was permitted that they should also become separate in things comparatively indifferent-and, in these also, bend the crooked stick the contrary way, that it might become straight in the end. Mediately then, or if my friends prefer it, let us say immediately (for the age deserved it at His hands) this persuasion was of the LORD. We know that episcopacy was down for the time, and royalty with it; and that a hard, republican, Presbyterian rule had taken the place of both. We forget, in our estimate of the character and ministry of George Fox, what he was in his beginnings: that he was on the mother's side' of the stock of the [Protestant] martyrs,' that his father, Christopher Fox, had the title among his own neighbours of righteous Christer'-that he himself began to preach the very year (1648) that the bishops were put down by the Parliament, that he was a staunch Bible Christian, according to his measure of understanding of the doctrine of that book; in which doctrine he wanted only the analogy of the faith' to be complete. We do not advert to the fact, that something extraordinary in reference to Christ's kingdom was looked for in that age, by serious Christians in general; and (before he showed his singularities) by the very clergy from himself. Let us rather admire, then, that still more of sectarian eccentricity did not appear in his system, than that in so many things he and his friends opposed the manners and customs of the time; and were thus the more effectually cut off from the society of even good and pious Christians; whose kind remonstrances and family connexions might have disarmed their hostility to intolerance; and made them content to obey magistrates in matters where conscience was as yet unsatisfied; and sit again under ministers, whose predestinarian doctrine, equally with their persecuting practice, they had been led wholly to reject. They were the more healthy in spirit, for their bitter but wholesome diet of hourly scorn from the world: they did their duty of testifying against it, I conclude, the more honestly and courageously for going almost always in jeopardy of their lives: gold is tried in the fire, and acceptable men in the furnace of adversity. They were worthy to be buffeted with the great apostle of the gentiles-inasmuch as they had to renew, in the face of that most perfidious and cruel court and government which succeeded to the republic and protectorate, the precepts of the Saviour to a lapsed race; who seemed to have forgotten that Christ himself came into the world to bear witness to the truth, (John xviii. 37,) that meekness was a Christian virtue-and that there remained in the church such a book as the New Testament!

(To be continued.)

ART. II.-Remarks on Scripture Passages.

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(Continued from vol. iv. page 157.)

1 Peter iv. 6: For for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God, in the spirit.'

I think the apostle here refers to some who had lately suffered martyrdom; he alludes to their suffering affliction in the beginning of this chapter; as also in the preceding ones: and I would understand it thus-'For this end also [that of the reformation of their manners] was the gospel preachedto them that are dead: that, being condemned with men in the flesh, they might live with God in the spirit.' There is no occasion, surely, to go back to the antediluvians, or to the preaching of Noah, in this place.

Luke viii. 16, 17: No man when he hath lighted a candle covereth it with a vessel, or putteth it under a bed; but setteth it on a candlestick, that they which enter in may see the light. For nothing is secret, that shall not be made manifest; neither hid, that shall not be known and come abroad.'

Ver. 16 is repeated in substance in ch. xi. ver. 33, but out of connexion with the context; and we find it again, in no better connexion, Mark iv. 21. This is, therefore, probably its original place in the sacred text. It contains a figure applicable to the doctrine that follows it in the next verse. But what shall we make of this verse; a general assertion detached from the context? I think not, and that in order to be understood it should be rendered thus: For nothing of mine is so secret as that it shall not be made manifest hereafter: neither is my doctrine hidden, but in order that it may be known and come abroad.'

Let the reader compare this with the text and context, in Matt. v. 14— 16, and x. 26, 27, and Luke xii. 2, and he will see both the meaning of the seemingly abstract proposition, and its necessary bearing on the full reception, careful remembrance, and subsequent undaunted publication of Christ's doctrine; by those who had been chosen for the purpose, and admitted to that degree of intimacy (not allowed to others) with the great teacher of men.

Luke xi. 36: I can scarce believe that we have here the sense of what was spoken by our Lord, at the conclusion of this short discourse. If thy whole body be full of light, the whole shall be full of light-what is this but a truism, altogether unworthy of the speaker to whom it is given? And yet nothing more can be made (it seems) of the original, as we find it. Suppose we paraphrase it thus, taking ver. 35 as it stands:

'Take heed, therefore, that the light which is in thee be not darkness. For if the whole body of thy knowledge and principles be according to the truth, then shall thy whole conduct also be correct: as is thy walking, where a bright candle gives thee light.'

Luke v. 39: No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith, The old is better: [not in the two parallel places in Matt. ix. and Mark ii.]

In the verses preceding this, the new wine is clearly put for the doctrine of the New Testament, which is not to be preserved (as in a vessel) along with the ceremonies and observances of the law. It is contrary to these, and will be sure to nullify and destroy them. But here we seem to have the metaphor reversed, and the old wine admitted to be the better of the two. To reconcile what appears at first a contradiction of Christ by himself, we must bear in mind the words 'he saith'-it is the opinionated attachment of the Scribes and Pharisees' (ver. 30.) to their own doctrine