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After these enormous pretensions, it would be but a slight matter to assert that the Quakers are infallible:

"Christ acts all in them," says George Fox ; " and that is it which leads the saints to divide and discern all things, both temporal and spiritual; the spiritual wisdom of God, which gives them a spiritual understanding, which men must rule withal, but not with their own, that comes to nought. And you that have not that which is infallible to judge in, you know not the Spirit of Christ; neither can you judge of persons or things that have not the infallible judgment, nor have the spiritual man; neither have you the word of God in your hearts, nor Christ, which is eternal and infallible; all which the Quakers have, to judge persons and things." (id. 5.) "This I say—none be ministers of the Spirit, none have the Spirit of Christ, nor the Holy Ghost, nor the Spirit of the Father speaking in them, but those who have that which is infallible, and in that which is infallible. And they are in the lying spirit and in hypocrisy that are out of it: so ye do well to confess that ye have not the infallible Spirit; for how can they but delude people that are not infallible ?" "The Quakers have a spirit given to them beyond all the forefathers, which we do witness, since the days of the apostles, in the apostacy; and they can discern who are saints, who are devils, and who are apostates, without speaking ever a word, they that be in the power and the life of truth; and the natural man knows not the things that be in another man. (89.) Who witness these conditions they were in that gave forth the Scriptures, they witness infallibility, and an infallible Spirit, which is now possessed and witnessed amongst those called Quakers. The devil, false prophets, antichrists, deceivers, the beast, the mother of harlots, none of these can witness an infallible Spirit, nor the well nor the fountain, but the letter; though they may get all the sheep's clothing, and come in likeness of a lamb or a sheep to deceive people withal; but being out of the Spirit that Christ, the prophets, and apostles was in, that gave forth Scriptures, they are not infallible as they were, but with that they are all judged out," &c. (105.) And again :-"You that do not instruct and preach by the same immediate infallible Spirit as the prophets and apostles was in, you be all in an usurped authority, out of the Spirit; for whom God sends he sends immediately, and they know his infallible Spirit; and none knows the Scriptures of truth of you all, since the days of the apostles, in the night of the apostacy, but who are in the infallible Spirit which the prophets and apostles was in."

Infallibility, the most precious jewel in the Pope's tiara, was thus inscribed on the phylactery of every Quaker, and the natural pride of the human heart was consequently fostered into the most revolting extravagances of inflated ignorance. The Quakers' meeting was not for the purpose of examining, searching, and expounding the holy Scriptures; the reading of the Bible was banished from their public assemblies,* and to this day has never been allowed amongst them ;

[*Though holy Scripture was not to be read in their meetings, yet it would appear that what was given forth in the life might be. We have before us some specimens, the addresses of which we subjoin:

"A General Epistle, given forth from the Spirit of the Lord, to be read in his fear, in the assemblies of the church of the first-born, gathered in these northern countries, and in

"the same immediate infallible Spirit which gave forth the Scriptures" was within the disciples of George Fox, and the principal fountain of eternal truth flowed forth from their own hearts. Why then should they consult the Scriptures? It could not be necessary; it might be superfluous; nay, it might be mischievous, for it might seem as if they were turning their backs on the God within them, if they turned to any other teaching than such as he vouchsafed them. They had within themselves a rule of faith and practice superior to the Scriptures, and to that it was their business to attend.

"We may not call the Scriptures," says Barclay, "the principal fountain of truth and knowledge, nor yet the first adequate rule of faith and manners; because the principal fountain of truth must be the truth itself, i. e. that whose authority and certainty depends not upon another. When we doubt of the streams of any river or flood we recur to the fountain itself, and having found it there we desist; we can go no further, because there it springs out of the bowels of the earth, which are inscrutable. Even so the writings and sayings of all men we must bring to the word of God, I mean the eternal word, and if they agree thereunto we stand there. For this word always proceedeth and doth eternally proceed from God, in and by which the unsearchable wisdom of God, and unsearchable counsel and will conceived in the heart of God, is revealed unto us."

The word within a Quaker's heart was not to be tried by the Scriptures, but the written Scriptures were to be tried by the word or light within; and if there was, by this process, an apparent accordance, it would be satisfactory, because it would thereby prove to the Quaker that the prophets and apostles had entertained the same views as himself.*

This mystery is thus stated by William Penn:

"The Scripture is much like the shadow of the true rule, which may give us some ground to guess what the rule itself is, as a chart or map of a country how

all countries and islands wherever the people of the Lord are scattered over the face of the earth." By William Dewsbury, 1668.

"Unto all that wait in Zion," &c., "containing three letters, written at three sundry times, unto the gathered of God into the covenant of endless life," &c. "Let these be sent abroad, to be read in the assemblies of the people of the true and living God, when they are met together in God's holy fear." By William Green, 1664.-EDs.]

* "Whilst travelling last year (1834) in Ireland, I met a physician, who had been educated as a Friend, and professed entire concurrence with the doctrines of Barclay, though he believed not in the Lamb slain for sin. When the concluding verses of the ix. of Hebrews were quoted,Without shedding of blood is no remission,' he refused to receive it as Scripture, because it did not meet the witness of the Spirit in his own mind; and he then instanced other passages, which he rejected on the same principle. Thus an unregenerate man, taught by Barclay to believe that God dwelt in him, was determining what he would and what he would not receive as Scripture, and using the very principle of Barclay in defending his rejection of the blood of the covenant."-Remonstrance to the Society of Friends, by B. W. Newton, p. 46.

it lies, yet not the very place itself; and in this respect it may be a kind of secondary rule, carrying with it a testimonial confirmation that what we are led by is the true Spirit, because the people of God in old time enjoyed the same; as the eternal Spirit, first of all, confirms the Divine authority of the Scriptures unquestionably to us, that they are a declaration of the will and pleasure of Almighty God to the sons of men in several ages of the world. He that is so inward with a prince as to know, viva voce, what his mind is, heeds not so much the same when he meets it in print, (because in print,) as because he has received a more living touch and sensible impression from the prince himself, to whose secrets he is privy. And this the Scriptures teach us to believe is a right Christian's state and privilege for,' said the apostle, We have the mind of Christ,' and, The secrets of God are with them that fear him,' and,' Guide me by thy counsel, and bring me to glory."" (ii. 106.)

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It therefore became an established rule that the Quakers spoke and taught that which was above the Gospel, because what they said was a new flow of the original fountain, coming forth fresh from God; whereas the Gospel was a record of the same will of God, but recorded centuries ago, and much corrupted by errors of transcribers, printers, and translators; besides, the Gospel in the Scriptures was a record chiefly for the age in which it was written, whereas the Quakers' gospel was a Divine inspiration, having a direct reference to the present acts and wants of the church. Thus James Parnel, a martyr of the sect, who died in prison, in the year 1656, has in his book, entitled, "Christ Exalted into his Throne, and the Scripture owned in its Place," not scrupled to assert that the light of the Quakers is the great Gospel:—

And if you priests do allege there is a false light, as well as a true light, I answer that it is in you, which blinds your minds, so that you cannot receive the Gospel, but from you it is hid, (2 Cor. iv. 3, 4 ;) and therefore you bring another Gospel, calling the four books, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the Gospel, in which these four books will witness against you," &c.

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He quotes a passage of Paul, in his second epistle to the Corinthians, as describing the Quaker Gospel, the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, which is the image of God;' and in opposition to this he names another Gospel, the four books of the evangelists, but only to assert that these four books would condemn those who opposed the internal and superior Gospel of the Quakers.

Robert Barclay agrees with all the other teachers :

"These Divine inward revelations, which we make absolutely necessary for the building up of true faith, neither do nor can ever contradict the outward testimony of the Scriptures, or right and sound reason. Yet from hence it will not follow, that these Divine revelations are to be subjected to the test either of the outward testimony of the Scriptures, or of the natural reason of man, as to a more noble or certain rule and touchstone; for the Divine revelations and inward illumination is that which is evident and clear of itself, forcing, by its own evidence and

clearness, the well-disposed understanding to assent, irresistibly moving the same thereunto, even as the common principles of natural truths do move and incline the mind to a natural assent-as that the whole is greater than its part, that two contradictories can neither be true, nor both false.”—(Apology.)

Neither have the genuine Quakers of the present day the least declined from this doctrine; for in the following passage from Dr. Hancock's Answer to "The Beacon," it will be found that, though the Scriptures are considered sufficiently respectable to receive a high compliment, and to be spoken of with much approbation; yet it is very plainly stated that they are inefficient in the great and crowning work of the Christian religion-the production of a true Quaker:

"I cannot but make a general remark," says Dr. Hancock, "that, whilst I trust and believe the holy Scriptures will never cease to be regarded by the Society of Friends as one of the greatest outward helps and blessings to aid the Christian in his course, which, by the goodness of God, we possess, and which, indeed, have been acknowledged as such by the Society, in its advices and by its practice, down to the present time ;-nevertheless, though it does not become me to judge my neighbour, neither am I competent to say how far the searching of the Scriptures, without any other help, might make a Christian of another denomination, I am sure that searching the Scriptures alone would never make a true Quaker.”

The naiveté of this confession is admirable, for we must all unanimously confess, that we might search the Scriptures in vain to find any thing the least resembling "a true Quaker."

An attentive consideration of these extravagances naturally leads one to inquire if the disciples of the Inward Light believed in the outward Christ, who was born of a woman, under the law, and suffered death by crucifixion under Pontius Pilate. This was a question repeatedly put to them; to which they uniformly, as far as I am informed, replied, that they did really and truly believe in the incarnate and suffering Jesus, and that in the usual and proper meaning of the words, without any mental reservation or equivocation whatsoever. George Fox denounces the insinuation as "a slander;" and though he found some fanatics in his peregrinations who rejected "an outward Christ," he stigmatises the notion as "a wicked imagination and a whimsy." After such declarations it would be unfair to disbelieve them; nevertheless, it must be confessed that the early Quakers have put forth such statements respecting their "Christ within," as it would be extremely difficult to reconcile with a belief in an outward, incarnate, and suffering Redeemer. After a close examination of this subject, I believe that the Quaker doctrine may be thus stated:-"Jesus Christ, really and truly, and in the usual meaning of words, was incarnate, and

was crucified on mount Calvary, and rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven; but this was chiefly to testify, by outward signs, that he was the Saviour, and that his salvation was true. This was a public, outward, visible testimony; necessary, also, for the abolition of the Mosaic law; but it was only an outward testimony, comfortable to those who were acquainted with the fact, but not necessary to be known; for Christ, as God, really is, and always was, within all men, and in them he dies, rises again, and ascends into the highest places; and by the inward sanctification of the inward light, which is himself, he renders the elect perfect, and so atones for them by the perfect holiness which he effects inwardly; and thus he is the wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption of all those who turn to the Inward Light, and by it are led, taught, and moulded. It is not, therefore, necessary to have heard of the outward Christ who really suffered on Calvary; neither is it necessary to read the printed Scriptures which narrate the fact; for Christ within teaches effectually, and redeems with a most sure redemption, irrespective of any outward knowledge." Such is the general outline of the doctrine. I now proceed with quotations to elucidate it. George Fox teaches us

"Where Jesus Christ is within, the word is there, and God is there, and this is the great mystery of godliness, (1 Tim. iii. 16 ;) and where the power of God is set, the cross of Christ is felt, for the cross is the power of God; and if it be not the same Christ as did ascend, it is antichrist, it is against him, and is false ; which now many hundreds and thousands do witness-Christ within." (Great Myst. 173.)

Opponent. "Christ is without his saints in respect of bodily presence."

Answer by George Fox. "How then are they of his flesh and of his bone-and how have the saints his mind and Spirit, and he with them, and they with him, and sit with him in heavenly places ?-Ye poor apostates from him, who feel not Christ with you; but he is with the saints, and they feel him. (id. 222.) The saints' bodies are the temple of God-and they are not distinct from him, for they sit with him in heavenly places, and he is in them, and they in him. And Christ in you, the mystery, the hope of glory; and he is the head of the church, and so not distinct." (174.)

Opponent. "No man can see God, who is invisible."

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Answer. "This is contrary to John, who saith, he that walks in the light shall have fellowship with the Son and with the Father, and so sees him; and it is not a little light by which all things were made and created." (221.) Whosoever hath Christ within hath the righteousness. Now Christ that suffered, Christ that was offered up, is manifest within; and the saints are of his flesh and of his bone, and eat his flesh and drink his blood, and not another. The Christ that ended the priesthood, ended the temple, law, and first covenant, the seed of God, Christ Jesus, this manifest within. He that hath him hath life, justification, sanctification, and redemption, and so Christ, the same to-day, yesterday, and for ever, who is the hope and the author of their faith; and so all be in the fancy that be out of the state of witnessing Christ that suffered within them, and rose again." (id. 131.) "Christ is not out of the sight of the saints that are in the church; therefore

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