old or young into the fetters of implicit faith in huinan infallibility;-the infallibility too of men, who differed from each other, who occasionally differed from themselves, who differed still more from some of the modern leaders of Quakerism, and, what is of most importance, who differed, I apprehend, in no trivial degree, from the apostles and prophets of the Lamb.

The author of the "Beacon" makes his appeal directly to the Scriptures, as the only standard by which he will consent to be tried, because, in his estimation, the only authoritative test of religious truth. The question is-Is he right in this? If another question is to be interposed-Does he speak according to Barclay ?-let it be distinctly understood, that the object of interposing this question is, not to ascertain whether he speaks truth, but whether he speaks genuine Quakerism. The questions, whether Isaac Crewdson be in the right, and whether Isaac Crewdson be a true Quaker, are essentially distinct. To identify them, is to assume the infallible rectitude of Quakerism, and to settle every controversy by appeal to human authority. I do not question the right of the religious body to which the writer of the Beacon belongs, to press upon him the latter of the two inquiries. Every Christian community is, without doubt, entitled to say to each of its members, respecting any sentiments he may be

pleased to publish," These may be your opinions; they may be according to your views of the Scriptures:-but they are not the opinions of our body; -and if you hold them, consistency and duty require, not that you trouble and distract the body, but that you withdraw from it."-But while I grant this, it should surely be also admitted, that a man may, by various bonds,-both bonds of nature and bonds of grace, be attached to a particular community; that

he

may still see not a little in it which he esteems good, and worthy of being preserved and cherished; and that he may be reluctant to break his connexion, and anxious, in the first instance, to do his utmost for the rectification of what is wrong; that so, should the issue be the necessity of withdrawment on his part, or exclusion on the part of the Society, he may, in either case, have "a conscience void of offence," as having "done what he could." Genuine affection may thus be the instigator to disturbance. If the peace that prevails have not its basis in truth, sooner it is unsettled the better. There cannot be a desire more purely the dictate of genuine love, than the desire to lead the objects of that love from error to truth; and if, the moment we deem them in error, we unceremoniously abandon them, the haste of relinquishment, being naturally interpreted as indicating the slightness of attachment, may diminish, if not even destroy and invert, the influence of our counsel.

the

which,

Controversy is not in itself desirable; but it may be necessary; and even those who are least inclined to it may feel this "necessity laid upon them" by a paramount sense of duty,-duty to truth, duty to God, duty to their erring friends. The God of peace is the God of truth; and there may be a peace as the God of truth, he disowns. In the spiritual world, as in the physical, stagnation may be more perilous than tempest. The agitating storm of controversy may at times be requisite, to purify the atmosphere of Zion from its insidiously gathering, and silently death-spreading miasmata. Every thing depends on the tempers of mind in which controversy is conducted:-and it should not be forgotten, that, while "the meekness and gentleness of Christ" is needful on the one hand, openness to light and conviction is no less indispensable on the other. I have already adverted to the danger of an excessive deference to human authority and to venerated names. May the Spirit of truth preserve you from such a state of mind as that which Dr Hancock expresses, when he writes thus respecting the author of the Beacon:-" But I hope he will never be so far selfdeceived, as to propose to himself such an unattain"able object, as that of convincing the serious, weighty, and reflecting members of the Society, "that they do not know their own doctrines, or that "Scripture is against them; and that for nearly two

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"hundred years, they have been supporting a weak "and brittle testimony, with the loss of life, and of 'liberty, and of property, in favour of principles “which are now found to be delusive and pernicious “errors.” *—This is to be proof against conviction. It is not to open the eyes, but to shut them,-to "wink hard" against the admission of light. When

a writer deprecates the idea of Friends "moving one "single step from any of their testimonies, to meet "their fellow-christians of other denominations," and assigns his reason for it in these terms-" Because

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we believe that the standard we have adopted is a "fixed one, and that as it is, we apprehend, not of our own, but of divine appointment, therefore we "cannot change it," the evidently assumes the very

Defence of the Doctrines of immediate Revelation, &c., pages 15, 16.

+ Ibid. page 79.-Having thus adverted to Dr Hancock's Defence, I take the opportunity of saying, that, in my apprehension, he has been far from doing justice to the author of the Beacon, but is chargeable, in his treatment of him, with a violation of the most imperative claims of charity. When he says, page 1, "If I am not mistaken, there is a covert attack upon "the fundamental principles of the Society, though the object is "held out by the author to be a very different one,"-he imputes to him an insincerity, of which the amiable writer, I am very sure, was most unconscious :-and when he adds, as his own vindication for assailing his Work,-" to suffer such an attack to "pass unnoticed from a quarter, in which age, and character, "and station, must give it the greater weight, scarcely seems to "be the duty of any one who has a firm belief in the truth of

point in debate, the "divine appointment" of the Quaker standard, whilst, at the same time, he leaves the questions to be asked, what that standard is, and on what description of evidence he rests the infallible

"our testimonies, and a desire to see them more generally estab"lished" he seems to have forgotten that "age, and character, "and station," ought the more to have commanded his respect, and to have screened their possessor from surmises so injurious. Yet they are repeatedly introduced. "There is evidently con"siderable address, in stating some of his propositions so warily "as not positively to announce such a denial”-page 5:—in the same page he speaks of "oblique insinuations;" in page 15, of his taking "another occasion" from a particular passage of Scripture "for covertly calling in question the doctrine of universal "saving light;" and, in pages 24, 25, of the terms "mysticism," "quietism," and "a religion of feelings," used by the author, as "evidently traps laid to catch the feet of the unwary," and expresses his belief that "none of the firm, and sound, and weighty members of Christ's church amongst the Friends will be entangled in the snare, or drawn away by the specious stratagem." -Now to me it appears, that, if ever sentiments were propounded clearly and honestly, they are so in the Beacon. They are any thing but ambiguous. And of this Dr H. seems himself at times to be sensible; for in the very page in which he speaks of his "covertly calling in question the doctrine of universal "saving light," he speaks also of "the author's avowed opinion of the paramount authority of Scripture, paramount, I mean, to that of the light of Christ in the soul;" and whereas, in one of the pages referred to, he talks of "snares" and "specious stratagems," he, in another-page 76-represents "the tendency of "the Beacon as, in his view, very decided."-That the sentiments propounded in the Beacon are in opposition to some of the fundamental principles of genuine Quakerism, it would be hypocrisy in me to attempt denying. But I do deny that they are propounded covertly, insnaringly, or with any portion of