mercy of my (bleffed) Saviour can avail more towards the falvation of me a finner, than my iniquity can do to my deftruc tion. Amen.

St. Aug. T. 3. in S. Johan. O Lord Jefus in thee there was (found) no caufe of death, and yet didft thou fuffer death for ME. I have deferved death: give me grace (O Lord) that I may not fear to die, and that I may be prepared for it. Amen.

+

O Lord Jefus for those bitter pains which thou didst endure on the crofs for me a moft miferable creature, and especially at that hour when thy moft precious foul went forth from thy bleffed body, I befeech thee have mercy on my foul when she takes her flight, and bring her into life eternal. Amen.

ABSOLUTION.

Our Lord Jefus Chrift, who hath left power to his Church to abfolve all finners, which truly repent and believe in him, of his great mercy forgive thee THINE offences. And by his authority committed to me, I abfolve thee from all thy fins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. See archbishop Laud's Daily office, from p. 183 to p. 206 inclufive.

(To be concluded in our next.)

H

Vol. XIII.Churchm. Mag. for July, 1807.

Review of New Publications.

A Portraiture of Quakerifm, taken from a View of the Moral Education, Difcipline, Peculiar Cuftoms, Relious Principles, Political and Civil Economy, and Character, of the Society of Friends. By THOMAS CLARKSON, M. A. Author of feveral Effays on the Subject of the Slave Trade. 3 volumes 8vo. Second Edition.

TH

THE Quakers have found a very zealous advocate in Mr. Clarkfon, and they have expreffed their fenfe of the favour, by purchafing the whole of his firft edition. After this the public ought to have been accommodated at a reasonable rate; but the Friends know the value of money, and how to fell their commodities to the beft advantage, as well as any fet of people in the world, and Mr. Clarkson in his intercourse with them, has not failed to profit by this example of commercial prudence. For these three thin volumes, loofely printed, the charge is twenty-feven fhillings, though the whole might have been comprised in two small volumes, and profitably fold for half the fum.

The work itself, though called "a Portraiture," is in fact an Apology for Quakerifm. It is true we have many curious particulars refpecting the internal economy of this fingular people, but every part is drawn with a ftudied care to reprefent the Quakers, or Friends, as the beft modelled fociety upon earth, and as being guided by the pureft principles.

Quakerifm is in exprefs terms denominated "a pure fyftem, which, if followed clofely, will lead to purity and perfection;"-this is not only to maintain that Chriftianity and Quakerifm are one and the fame thing, but that the latter is the perfection of the former. Every deviation from Quakerism, either in opinion or practice, muft be, according to Mr.

Clarkfon,

Clarkson, a departure from purity, and the direct confe. quence of this affumption is, that perfection and infallibility are feated in the Quaker-church, as the Papifts pretend with regard to the Church of Rome. Of this, however, more hereafter. Our prefent attention will be occupied by a confideration of the biographical eulogy on the founder of Quakerifm given in the introduction.

George Fox, the Father of this fect, is reprefented as having been a man apoftolical in his zeal, holy in his life, and wonderfully gifted for the extraordinary work in which he was engaged. Mr. Clarkfon goes ftill farther than this, and fets up a defence of Fox's impudent pretenfions to a divine commiffion. This we could hardly have expected even from a preacher of the fect, with all his nonfenfical claims to immediate infpiration; but when we read fuch an apology in the performance of a man of liberal education, we can only exclaim "poor human nature.'

Mr. Clarkfon calls Quakerifm the centre of purity and perfection, but from the fpecimen we are about to give of his wonderful credulity, it will be found that it is not the purity and perfection of intellect.

Fox pretended to be a prophet fent by the divine command to "reftore Chriflianity to its pure and primitive flate;" this bold pretenfion is ftated by Mr. Clarkson, and he offers an apology for it in the following man

ner,

"Whatever were the doctrines, whether civil, or moral, or religious, which George Fox promulgated, he believed that he had a Divine Commission for teaching them; and that he was to be the Restorer of Christianity; that is, that he was to bring people from Jewish ceremonies and Pagan Fables, with which it had been intermixed, and also from worldly customs, to a religion which was to consist of spiritual feeling. I know not how the world will receive the idea that he conceived himself to have had a revelation for these purposes. But nothing is more usual than for pious people, who have succeeded in any ordinary work of goodness, to say that "they were providentially led to it;" and this expression is usually considered among Christians to be accuBut I cannot always find the difference between a man being providentially led into a course of virtuous and successful actions, and his having had an internal revelation for it. * For if we admit that men may be providentially led upon such occasions, they

rate.

* "Except in cases, where he may be supposed to be acted upon by the providential instrumentality of others."

may

may be led by the impressions upon their minds. But will not these internal impressions be as the dictates of an internal voice to those who follow them? But if pious men would believe themselves to have been thus providentially led, os acted upon, in any ordinary case of virtue, if it had been crowned with success, George Fox would have had equal reason to believe, from the success that attended his own particular undertaking, that he had been called upon to engage in it. For at a very early age he had confuted many of the professors of religion in public disputations. He had converted magistrates, priests, and people. Of the clergy'men of those times, some had left valuable livings, and followed him. In his thirtieth year he had seen no fewer than sixty persons spreading, as ministers, his own doctrines. These and other circumstances which might be related, would doubtless operate powerfully upon him, to make him believe that he was a chosen vessel. Now, if to these considerations it be added that George Fox was not engaged in any particular or partial cause of benevolence, or mercy, or justice, but wholly and exclusively in a religious and spiritual work, and that it was the first of all his religious doctrines, that the Spirit of God, where men were obedient to it, guided them in their spiritual concerns, he must have believed himself on the consideration of his unparalleled success, to have been providentially led, or to have had an internal or spiritual commission for the cause which he had undertaken."

Nothing can be more contemptible than this fophiftry. The common phrafeology of pious perfons when they have experienced any remarkable deliverance or other bleffing, is brought in to fupport the claim of George Fox to the character of a teacher fent from God. The chain of caufe and effect is frequently imperceptible, whence it happens that many incidents are confidered as special providences, which, if clofely inveftigated, would be found to have happened as naturally as the more ordinary occurrences of life. But even allowing the utmoft to the piety of thofe who attribute bthe bleffings they experience to a particular providence, what has this fentiment to do with the extraordinary cafe of an illiterate youth who pretends a divine call to abrogate pofitive inftitutions, to change the order of the Christian Church, and to convert the world? Though we concede much to the piety of the former, we must have indubitable evidences of his commiffion, before we can admit the claim of the latter.

But it is alleged that Fox believed in his own call; which is only to fay that he was no hypocrite. The fame might be afferted of every enthufiaft. Ignatius Loyola, the

founder

founder of a fociety as well organized as that of the Quakers, was fincere in his pretenfions to a divine call; and he had as good grounds for believing it as George Fox

had.

Can any thing be more abfurd than the affertion that Fox had reason to be confirmed in this belief "from the fuccefs that attended his particular undertaking ?"

If fuccefs be admitted as a reason why a man fhould believe that he was under divine direction, Mohammed might have justly brought his mind to the perfuafion that he was actually what he pretended to be, the Prophet of God. The Arabian impoftor was infinitely more fuccefsful than George Fox; yet the circumftances of the times in which they lived, will fufficiently account for the progrefs of both.

+

The ftate of the Chriftian Church in the eaft when Mohammed arofe, was deplorable in the extreme, divided into numberlefs parties, on account of diflinctions the most trifling and abfurd, contending with each other from perverse. nefs, and perfecuting each other with rancour, corrupt in opinion and degenerate in practice, the Chriftians of this unhappy period feem to have retained little more than the name and external profeffion of their religion. Of a Chriftian Church fcarce any veftige remained. The molt profligate principles and abfurd opinions were univerfally predominant; ignorance amidst the most favourable opportunities of knowledge, vice amidst the nobleft encouragements to virtue; a pretended zeal for truth, mixt with the wildeft extravagancies of error; an implacable fpirit of difcord about opinions which none could fettle; and a general and striking fimila rity in the commiffion of crimes which it was the duty and intereft of 'all to avoid *.

This melancholy picture of the ftate of the east in the fixth century, will be found a very exact representation of England, when the founder of Quakerifm abandoned his laft and his crook, and like the Arabian camel-driver, asferted a fpecial call from God to restore pure religion and to convert the world. We are not disposed to run a parallel between these two perfonages, but we have adverted to the cafe of Mohammed merely to fhew that the fuccefs of George Fox did not arife either from providential operation or the excellence of his doctrine, but from the distracted ftate of the nation. The church was proftrate in the duft,

See White's Bampton Lectures, page 61, 24 edition.

and