tion." He declares, "that God ever reputed him" (Christ) "a sinner is denied: neither did he ever die that we should be imputed righteous." "The imputed righteousness of Christ is not to be found in all the Bible." Barclay's Apology was first published in 1675. He has taken extraordinary pains to retain all the reveries of his predecessor George Fox; and at the same time to give them such a colour as might render them less odious, and more similar to the doctrines and creeds of the reformers and reformed churches. He speaks, in the early part of his book, in high strains of encomium on the death and sufferings of Christ, as a propitiation for our sins. He labours, through more than two hundred pages, to conciliate the favour of the reader, by many general expressions of respect for the sacrifice of Christ Jesus, before he ventures to assert that we are justified by our own good works. When he does come to this point, it is in an indirect and uncandid manner. Christ formed within us, he has explained to be the formation of good principles in our hearts, in the heart of every man, who improves the inward light imparted to all. Then he tells us we are justified by Christ formed within us. He allows the reader to draw the conclusion, which will be directly contrary to that of the apostle. The quakers, who embrace the Apology of Barclay, and it is in as much esteem among them as the Bible, must conclude, that a man is justified by the deeds of the law, and that it is of works that every man may boast. It must be evident to the intelligent reader of his doctrines, that he availed himself largely of the writings of Arminius and the Salmurensian divines. His reasonings are substantially the same as theirs, in most points.

The quakers rejected the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's supper, formed for themselves a dress as a distinctive badge of their society, and laid aside all the forms of church government, which had ever been known in the world. Had it not been for these external distinctions, they

*Barc. Apo. Phil. Ed. p. 222.

† Ibid. 228.

Ib. p. 229.

would long since have abandoned the mysticism in which they have enveloped Arminianism, and sunk into the methodist, episcopal, or Socinian bodies. The celebrity of William Penn, derived chiefly from his founding the colony of Pennsylvania, who in early life was an ardent and zealous declaimer among the quakers, has been a means of giving more reputation and permanency to this society, than it would otherwise have attained. It has now existed nearly one hundred and seventy years, but it is on the decline. A very plausible apology for quakerism has been lately published, by Clarkson, who pretends that he does not belong to the society. But the days of quakerism are nearly numbered. It is devoutly to be hoped that their simplicity of language, dress, and manners, the only things for which as a denomination they are to be commended, will not die at the expiration of their sect. The episcopal church is not otherwise responsible for the existence of this society than that the persecutions of high churchmen goaded the people on to such madness.

There is another class of mystics, which however has long existed in the very bosom of the episcopal church,the Swedenburghians, so called from Emanuel Swedenburgh, of Sweden. Swedenburgh was in the early part of his life a distinguished naturalist, especially a mineralogist and metallurgist. He wrote in Latin a treatise on mineralogy, which contains much useful information. Either through the influence of partial derangement, as some, or through fanaticism, as others suppose; or through pious fraud as others think, he pretended to have intercourse with angels. He commenced divine, and wrote very largely. His theological works fill twelve large octavo volumes, written in Latin. He denies the doctrines of divine decrees, of atonement, and of a trinity of persons. He asserts that he was inspired of God to instruct both angels and men; that the general judgment is passed; that he attended it; and that he was commissioned to restore to men the knowledge of the internal sense of the scriptures, which before his time, he says, was entirely lost.

The doctrine of Swedenburgh respecting the trinity, while in some points it resembles the ancient Sabellian heresy, has also some features peculiar to itself. He says there is but one person in the Godhead, which person, until the incarnation of Messiah, acted in one capacity. The incarnation, he explains to be the assumption of human nature, by this one eternal and divine person, “going out," to use his mystical and strange language, "into ultimates." Hence, he is called Father, the human nature is called the Son, and the operation of this "human divine," and "divine human" he calls the Spirit. What he thinks to be precisely the intention of divinity, in this assumption of humanity, it is very difficult to assertain from his writings and those of his disciples; however, they seem to consider it as resulting from the material creation, and the union of intellectual with corporeal substances in human persons. In his system there is nothing like the atonement of the Bible. Faith with him is the same with works, and has no relation to an acceptance of a satisfaction made by Messiah.

The Old Testament history is, he says, a mystical or allegorical history of an ancient church, which may have existed many millions of centuries ago, and the external things there spoken of all correspond to spiritual things represented by them. In this point it resembles the doctrine of Cocceius, who maintained that the history of the Jews, was a type of the New Testament church; with this difference, that Swedenburgh makes it represent a church that existed before Adam, if indeed there was really such a person as Adam, which according to his system seems to be left in doubt. His descriptions of heaven, are derived from Mahomet, or rather Mahomet's and Swedenburgh's heaven is derived from the Epicureans, from the elysia of the ancient heathens. He describes in his book on the heavens and the hells, a marriage in heaven, at which the guests was regaled with the richest nectarous wines, and dressed in gorgeous apparel. He represents God in the "form of a man," but not the "shape;" in which he revives the heresy of the Anthropomorphites. The spiritual world, he affirms to

correspond to the material, and that the Son of God is the sun and centre of the spiritual world, as our sun is the centre of the material world,—an idea derived from the Platonic philosophy, and the heathen mythology. Into heaven and the enjoyments of the spiritual world may be, and he contends are, admitted many heathens. What is all this, when stripped of its mystical dress? Perfectly the Arminian creed, except that he pushes it farther, in denying the doctrine of the atonement, and making a sensual heaven. Though perhaps, after all, his mode of explaining the incarnation may amount nearly to the indefinite atonement, or the Salmurensian form of Arminianism.

In his wonderful narrations, he recounts conversations with angels, and adventures in the spiritual world, with as much confidence, as he does the ordinary events of life; and with an extravagance, which makes us exclaim, “risum teneatis, amici?" At first view, we should be disposed to think no men in their senses, would embrace such a system, yet it is certain that many thousands have embraced it, and many of them, in other things intelligent, learned, and amiable. Nor is it wonderful; for the great mysteries of the Christian system he not only pretends to explain, but to make them even visible and tangible. God, he even attempts to exhibit in human form. All his heaven is visible and tangible. Human pride is flattered by being taught to believe that it comprehends fully, all the great mysteries of the bible; and to those who do not possess a taste for spiritual enjoyment, in communion with God, such a heaven as he exhibits must possess all the charms that could fascinate their minds. Owing to these considerations, a thousand absurdities are digested.

The number of disciples which have been made to this system is very considerable. Many of the clergy of the Episcopal establishment, have not only embraced the system, with all its extravagancies, but they preach it, and defend it from the press, and yet continue in the communion of the church. In what way they reconcile it to their consciences, to profess in the most solemn manner from year

to year their belief in the Athanasian creed, and the articles and homilies of the church, all which contain principles diametrically opposite to those which they teach, is not easy to conceive. To swear most solemnly to a belief in the doctrine of the trinity, as contained in the creed of the Episcopal church, and in the doctrine of the atonement, the total depravity of human nature, and other points of the Calvinistic creed, as the Socinians and the Swedenburghians of the church of England do, and yet to write and to preach against them, and for the church to admit of all this prostitution of sacred things, evince a dreadful state of ecclesiastical order. The Rev. Mr. Clows, who has translated and published nearly all the theological works of Baron Swedenburgh, and has himself written largely in defence of them, is in full communion with the church, and the reasons which he pleads in vindication of this course of conduct, are drawn from convenience, ease and policy. Temporal support drawn from the exchequer of the state makes it easy and convenient, and his connection with the church may enable him and his brethren to deceive the unwary, into the fatal errors which they have embraced. Thus conscience is quieted. After all, those who embrace these two great heresies, are generally among the wealthy and fashionable; but few of the poor are led away. The Socinian is too frigid, too far removed from the vital warmth, which animates the page of inspiration, and its gracious and consolatory truths, for the acceptation of the poor. As Swedenburgh teaches that the enjoyments, employments, and situations of men in heaven resemble those which they have in the present world, people oppressed with poverty have no inducement to embrace such a creed. If these systems contain any gospel, it is one not preached to the poor.

The Socinian and Swedenburghian heresies have undoubtedly grown out of Arminianism as the parent stem, and they employ the same arguments which were long ago urged by Pelagius, and by Arminius, in relation to freewill, the moral powers of man, and the divine decrees. All are different corps marshalled in the same cause, and uniting