give it as my opinion, that men may dwell all their lives upon tenets and doctrines of incarnation, atonement, and whatever other doctrines they please to propagate, but cast the golden rule behind their backs, and neglect judgement, mercy and truth; but their righteousness will prove as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal, although they may say, "Have I not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name done much?" yet their sentence in the end must be, "Depart from me ye workers of iniquity, I know you not."

But he says, "I had said generally all they say or think of Christ is of his operations as a spirit on the hu man mind;" which he says "Friend Cobb numbers among his mistakes."

I think Friend Cobb is to be commended for his charity; but since Rand has had the oportunity of such information as has been presented him, I should judge it a hopeless prospect to think of correcting his judgment by farther information. But for the satisfaction of his readers I refer them to the extracts made from our writers in this work, by which it will appear that the Society of Friends not only believe in the spirituality of the gospel dispensation, but that they are full in their belief and acknowledgement to the outward manifesta. tion of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in that prepared body. It must be astonishing to every considerate person that he should find fault of putting but little difference between Christ and the Spirit, since Christ himself put the Spirit on equal ground with the Father, saying, "God is a spirit, and they that worship the Father, must worship him in spirit and in truth."

Now if God is to be known and worshipped only in spirit, can it be making little of the Son to say, we must

know him as a spirit, and where Paul knew him when he said, "it pleased the Father to reveal the Son in me.?

And as to his assertion, "that they or their preachers do not direct them to the cross, it is what any one acquainted with their preaching, I presume, will contradict; but it is true they do direct to Christ within, and to the word nigh even in the heart, and in the mouth and is it not strange that it should be thought inconsistent, in this day of boasted gospel light, to preach Christ as near to us as Paul did to a people he said he saw wholly given to idolatry; and on whose altars he saw an inscription to the Unknown GOD? But he admonished those idolaters to feel after God, telling them he was not far from every one of them; for he says, "in him we live, move, and have our being." Now this was not preaching him a great way off; neither was it esteemed making little of Christ, and every thing of the Spirit; but it was preaching him where he promised to be, even in the heart, where they were admonished to feel after him.

He then calls up his friend Mather as quoting a detached sentence of William Penn's, which he says "will at once explain the meaning of the other writers, and confirm all I have advanced on the subject."-O poor Penn! what wouldst thou have done if in thy life time thou hadst fallen into the hands of such an antagonist?

But however if the sentence was connected with the subject Penn wrote upon, I have no doubt of its justifying itself, for I have in later times than those of Penn heard it (when coupled with the abominable principle of partial election) asserted that God did not impute sin to the elect although they lived without faith or repentance, and that he does impute Christ's righteous

ness to them even while living in disobedience; and have no doubt if Penn met with such as endeavoured to propagate such an unscriptural and (may it not be said?) blasphemous principle, he would combat it, and perhaps in the language there stated, and with great propriety too, since without faith, the scripture saith, it is impossible to please God, and without obedience there is no promise of justification, as I read the scrip

tures.

But how Penn's saying, it is a great abomination to say that God should condemn and punish his innocent Son-that he having satisfied for our sins, we might be justified by the imputation of his righteousness-can confirm any thing he has asserted, I am at a loss to understand, unless the doctrine of Christ's righteousness imputed, produceth justification without faith, obedience or repentance, which to admit, would, in my opinion, be as absurd as rank infidelity; (but it ought to be observed that Penn confuted Mather's envious slander at the time, to the satisfaction of the candid.)

He then says, "Now I have explained the doctrine of the atonement, I presume Friend Cobb will allow that his brethren overlook it; if not, I am persuaded that my readers in general will be satisfied that they neither uuderstand it, nor give it its primary place in the scheme of salvation."

So far from his explanation being sufficient to convince Fr, Cobb, or any other candid person, that he has explained the doctrine of atonement, or that Friends overlook it, he has perverted Friends' belief respecting it, and even contradicted himself. It is true, after puz. zling himself to perplex his reader with confused ideas of our doctrine, he has quoted a text of scripture, we

always quote en the occasion and acknowledge to be the best account or explanation of the doctrine.

But I close my observations on this chapter, after observing, that with me it is a doubt whether his performance is not mere from envy and self interest than any concern he had about the orthodoxy of the principle of Friends, provided they would have kept at what he would esteem a respectful distance from the people who purchased their divinity from his mouth: which no doubt arises, not only from what he says in his first chapter he feels strongly tempted to state respecting Cobb's friends in Gorham but forbears," but from his sarcastic mode of expression in many parts of his performance.

CHAPTER V.

Remarks on Rand's "General View."

I now come to his 5th chapter, in which he says, “I shall throw my remarks into the form of a general view, which will include a brief recapitulation of subjects already discussed," and he says, "I have attentively and I trust candidly examined several of their most approved authors."

I admit he has quoted some of their approved authors; but I must doubt either his attention or candour, or both, since it would be doubting his capacity to suppose that he possessed the two former when we see such a production come out of such an inquiry; and I presume any candid reader would join with me in opinion. For

1. He says, "I can find, no account whatever of the attributes and perfections of Jehovah but

such as shew their writers' confused perceptions, &c. Such for instance is their argument which, from the fact that God is love, excludes all manifestations of wrath or justice, from the mission and work of Christ."

As respects justice, I feel myself bound to say, the assertion has no foundation of truth to support it; and until he can produce the author that has supported it, or endeavoured so to do, he must conclude to father it himself. I am willing to acknowledge for myself that I have seen no account of any wrath in his mission, nor did I ever hear it suggested but from Rand, nor can I conceive where he gets it from; since the account we have of him is, that he offered himself, and came as a mediator between God and sinful man, and also to intercede for him; and whether I am mistaken or not, my impression always was, and still is, that his mission was a mission of love. It seems to be a novel idea to think of an intercessor with a commission of wrath, for it belonged to his mission undoubtedly to offer himself to reconcile us unto his Father.

But

I agree with him, that it is a first principle, "that we cannot with understanding have that fear of the Lord which is the beginning of wisdom,' or be reconciled to God, &c. until we have the knowledge of God." it is to be remembered that in the course of his remarks he denies the means, and only means that the Saviour pointed out, by which God is to be known, viz.. divine revelation. See Matt. xi. 27. and John vi. 46. "And no man knoweth the Son but the Father, either knoweth any man the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him." Note-he did not say to whom the scriptures (then only the Old Testament) will reveal him. And I believe it would be