really known in the heart, and J. W.'s ideas and representations of its principles, are "two things;" and they appear to me to be as opposite to each other as light is to darkness.

The second means

to which, in combination with the former, J. W. appears chiefly to resort, is, not to win by cool and sound argument; but to stifle inquiry by bold and extremely fallacious assumptions, and those not unfrequently of a direful character; as if intended to create alarm respecting the principles of the "early Friends," and to frighten the present generation of the Society into a belief that what he states must be correct.

In J. W.'s letter to the monthly meeting, resigning his membership; and which he introduces at the commencement of the present work, he sums up in page xxi, with stating of the Society as believers in inward and immediate revelation : "Tens of thousands have, I fear, thus been lulled, until they have slept the sleep of death." And this revival of the dread sentence is maintained by allusions to it in pages 238 and 239.

In page 116, after stating his own views of Friends' writings respecting the Sacred Records, J. W. says: "It would seem that a material end of the early Friends' writings, was to make the Scriptures commit felo-de-se."

In page 287, after another of his own definitions of Friends' principles, J. W. says: "None need be surprised, if those who persist in supporting such a system, begin to see the effects of the voice which has gone forth, though they understand it not themselves, Come out of her my people.'

In page 238 J. W., alluding to an extract from R. Barclay's Apology, says: "Its effect on me, combined with much more which I drank in of Friends' writings, was this, to make me reject the belief of the miraculous conception of our Lord Jesus Christ."

If J. W. could imagine that he found this doctrine in Friends' writings, we cannot be surprised that such a mistaken view of them, “combined with much more which he drank in," from the fallacious source of his own misconstructions of their writings, should lead him to add: "Knowing, therefore, that to me they have been as the very smoke of the bottomless pit; and that very many are within the influence of the mephitic vapour which continues to be sent forth by them, I would, with all earnestness, utter the voice of warning against their fatal fumes; that those who have with myself severely suffered by them, may be induced prayerfully to study the Holy Scriptures for themselves, and not longer be deluded, &c."

In page 465, J. W. sums up thus: "It has been my endeavour to set before Friends honestly, fairly, and plainly, what I do most unequivocally believe and know by experience, to be the evils of their system; for as I have myself been driven by it, as to the very mouth of the pit, I would use every argument to convince those of their immense danger, who are still giving themselves up to it. I must however repeat, that it is far from me to judge persons.

"My whole soul abhors the principles of Quakerism. I believe they COME FROM BENEATH; and whither can they lead?

"But I will say again, it is my consolation most surely to believe, that many who make profession of them, are really not aware of their nature, and are satisfied to take the word of God for their rule, and to look in simplicity to their Saviour, without entering into the subject of the principles of the Society; which they are, perhaps, fearful to examine deeply, lest their minds should be perplexed. "

These three quotations form, in the original, part of one paragraph; and the only reason for dividing the quotation into three parts, is to afford the means of more brief and distinct reference.

The first division of this quotation contains a very serious charge against the whole system of Friends' principles; founded, however, upon J. W.'s own utterly wrong ideas of that system, and, therefore, the charge is, as J. W. says, "what I most unequivocally believe." Founded on J. W.'s own ideas, the charge appears to me just as rational for him to make, as it would be for a Jew, bewildered with the darkness and obscurity of the fourteenth century, to say in speaking of Christianity itself: "I know by experience the evils of the whole system of Christianity, for I have myself been driven by it to the very mouth of the bottomless pit; and, therefore, I would use every argument to induce Christians to become JEWS."

The latter part of the first division states: "I must, however, repeat that I do not judge PERSONS. With the obvious exceptions of G. Fox, W. Penn, R. Barclay, and a very few others, whom J. W. specifies by name, as maintaining principles which have led "to sleep the sleep of death," perhaps we may admit this; but J. W. adopts a much more summary process than individual judgments, by consigning the "poor Quakers," by "tens of thousands" to the regions of woe; and in passages which have been quoted, as in the last of the three divisions just introduced, and in other passages, J. W. assumes that those who being religiously disposed, and who, not aware of the nature of the principles they profess, are virtually forsaking them; or who having never deeply examined them, are satisfied without knowing what they are, may be in the way to life thus deciding, on a broader scale than "judging persons," who are goats and who are sheep.

On the same broad scale that J. W. thus deals with the "poor Quakers" themselves, he also begins the second division of the present quotation respecting their system, saying: "My whole soul abhors the principles of Quakerism." Here is not the shadow of an exception; and he immediately

pronounces this decisive sentence on all : "I believe them to COME FROM BENEATH, and whither can they lead ?"

One very prominent and distinguishing principle ever held by the Society of Friends, and, till of late years, by them almost exclusively, is that system of permanent and universal peace, and abstinence from all wars and fightings announced in this language: "on Earth Peace,-goodwill toward men." Christian charity would induce the hope, that the “abhorrence" in which this principle, in common with the rest, is involved, should be numbered amongst J. W.'s oversights, and that here, as well as in his remarks on the "dry rot" he, in the fervour of his zeal, had outrun his recollection, and had forgotten this principle altogether, and, therefore, had it not in his eye. If he had, there appears to be no alternative but concluding, that the very profession of the highest Truths, by the "poor Quakers," is quite sufficient for all such Truths to derive their origin "from beneath;" since his unqualified decision involves the song of the angels, who, on the glorious event of the birth of the Saviour of the world, proclaimed "on Earth Peace,-goodwill toward men,” joined by "a multitude of the heavenly host" ascribing "Glory to God in the highest."

Submitting this and other sweeping sentences of J. W.'s to the most favourable construction of the reader, as to the scope of them, I may just notice the purport of that now before us: "My whole soul abhors the principles of Quakerism; I believe they come from BENEATH.”

Under this charge, the objects of it may take comfort from the words of Christ respecting the Jews: "If they have called the Master of the house Belzebub, how much more them of his household;" for one of the principles which J. W. considers the most dreadful error, the grand bane of all, even "Inward Light" or "Immediate Revelation," concerning which he says page 105, whoever" will say anything to the contrary, is,

as W. Penn and his contemporaries declared: 'The ROOT of the goodly tree of doctrines that have grown and branched out from it.'" And this principle of the "early Friends" involves a firm belief in the apostolic doctrine: " Know ye not your ownselves, how that Jesus Christ is in you except ye be reprobates?" a doctrine which our blessed Lord strongly inculcates in his discourse with his disciples just before he suffered, as related in John chs. 14, 15, and 16. Hence how can the Holy Jesus himself, to say the least, escape being virtually implicated in J. W.'s sweeping abhorrence?

Too many of us, it must be allowed, through departing from the principles of the Society in a greater or less degree, may fear our having a just claim to the blessed privilege of being of Christ's " household;" but I trust all who truly and faithfully adhere to this principle of Quakerism, (which none can do without obedience to their Lord,) may possibly meet with His final acceptance; though J. W. consigns such by "tens of thousands to sleep the sleep of death."

To my apprehension, the quotations which J. W. brings forward from the early Friends," not unfrequently contain an antidote to the poison which J. W. extracts, or thinks he extracts from them. And I trust, in the course of the ensuing discussions of them, some readers will perceive, that J. W.'s "mephitic vapour," and other dire concomitants, have all had their origin, not in the principles of Friends, but in a confused and heterogeneous system, which J. W. bas agglomerated out of his own misconceptions of those principles.

In extenuation of his multifarious charges, denunciations, misrepresentations, &c., respecting the Society of Friends, J. W., page 463, pleads thus: "I certainly have not affected to speak doubtfully respecting things which are clearly revealed to us in Holy Scripture; nor have I hesitated to pronounce with decision in cases where the truth is self-evident. But although to some, perhaps this may seem like