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tor, when he started first up into the knowledge of the world? For he, and all men and families, ay, and all states and kingdoms too, have had their upstarts, that is, their beginnings. This is like being the True Church, because old, not because good; for families to be noble by being old, and not by being virtuous. No such matter: it must be age in virtue, or else virtue before age; for otherwise, a man should be noble by means of his predecessor, and yet the predecessor less noble than he, because he was the acquirer; which is a paradox that will puzzle all their heraldry to explain. Strange! that they should be more noble than their ancestor, that got their nobility for them! But if this be absurd, as it is, then the upstart is the noble man; the man that got it by his virtue and those only are entitled to his honour that are imitators of his virtue; the rest may bear his name from his blood, but that is all. If virtue, then, give nobility, which heathens themselves agree, then families are no longer truly noble than they are virtuous. And if virtue go not by blood, but by the qualifications of the descendants, it follows, blood is excluded; else blood would bar virtue, and no man that wanted the one should be allowed the benefit of the other; which were to stint and bound nobility for want of antiquity, and make virtue useless. No, let blood and name go together; but pray, let nobility and virtue keep company, for they are nearest of kin. . . .

But, methinks, it should suffice to say, our own eyes see that men of blood, out of their gear and trappings, without their feathers and finery, have no more marks of honour by nature stamped upon them than their inferior neighbours. Nay, themselves being judges, they will frankly tell us they feel all those passions in their blood that make them like other men, if not further from the virtue that truly dignifies. The lamentable ignorance and debauchery that now rages among too many of our greater sort of folks, is too clear and casting an evidence in the point: and pray, tell me of what blood are they come?

Howbeit, when I have said all this, I intend not, by debasing one false quality, to make insolent another that is not true. I would not be thought to set the churl upon the present gentleman's shoulder: by no means; his rudeness will not mend the matter. But what I have writ, is to give aim to all, where true nobility dwells, that every one may arrive at it by the ways of virtue and goodness. But for all this, I must allow a great advantage to the gentleman; and therefore prefer his station, just as the apostle Paul, who, after he had humbled the Jews, that insulted upon the Christians with their law and rites, gave them the advantage upon all other nations in statutes and judgments. I must grant that the condition of our great men is much to be preferred to the ranks of inferior people. For, first, they have more power to do good; and, if their hearts be equal to their ability, they are blessings to the people of any country. Secondly, the eyes of the people are usually directed to them; and if they will be kind, just, and helpful, they shall have their affections and services. Thirdly, they are not under equal straits with the inferior sort; and consequently they have more help, leisure, and occasion, to polish their passions and tempers with books and conversation. Fourthly, they have more time to observe the actions of other nations; to travel and view the laws, customs, and interests of other countries; and bring home whatsoever is worthy or imitable. And so, an easier way is open for great men to get honour; and such as love true reputation will embrace the best means to it. But because it too often happens that great men do little mind to give God the glory of their prosperity, and to live answerable to his mercies, but, on the contrary, live without God in the world, fulfilling the lusts thereof. His hand is often seen, either in impoverishing or extinguishing them, and raising up men of more virtue and humility to their estates and dignity. However, I must allow, that among people of this rank, there have been some of them of more than ordinary virtue, whose examples have given light to their families. And it has been something natural for some of their descendants to endeavour to keep up the credit of their houses in proportion to the merit of their founder. And, to say true, if there be any advantage in such descent, 'tis not from blood, but education; for blood has no intelligence in it, and is often spurious and uncertain; but education has a mighty influence and strong bias upon the affections and actions of men. In this the ancient nobles and gentry of this kingdom did excel; and it were much to be wished that our great people would set about to recover the ancient economy of their houses, the strict and virtuous discipline of their ancestors, when men were honoured for their achievements, and when nothing more exposed a man to shame, than his being born to a nobility that he had not a virtue to support."

Penn's Advice to his Children.

Next, betake yourself to some honest, industrious course of life, and that not of sordid covetousness, but for example, and to avoid idleness. And if you change your condition and marry, choose with the knowledge and consent of your mother, if living, or of guardians, or of those that have the charge of you. Mind neither beauty nor riches, but the fear of the Lord, and a sweet and amiable disposition, such as you can love above all this world, and that may make your habitations pleasant and desirable to you.

And being married, be tender, affectionate, patient, and meek. Live in the fear of the Lord, and He will bless you and your offspring. Be sure to live within compass; borrow not, neither be beholden to any. Ruin not yourselves by kindness to others; for that exceeds the due bonds of friendship, neither will a true friend expect it. Small matters I heed not.

Let your industry and parsimony go no further than for a sufficiency for life, and to make a provision for your children, and that in moderation, if the Lord gives you any. I charge you help the poor and needy: let the Lord have a voluntary share of your income for the good of the poor, both in our society and others: for we are all his creatures; remembering that he that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord.'

Know well your incomings, and your outgoings may be better regulated. Love not money nor the world: use them only, and they will serve you; but if you love them, you serve them, which will debase your spirits, as well as offend the Lord. Pity the distressed, and hold out a hand of help to them; it may be your case, and as you mete to others, God will mete to you again. Be humble and gentle in your conversation; of few words, I charge you; but always pertinent when you speak, hearing out before you attempt to answer, and then speaking as if you would persuade, not impose. Affront none, neither revenge the affronts that are done to you; but forgive, and you shall be forgiven of your heavenly Father.

In making friends, consider well first; and when you are fixed, be true, not wavering by reports, nor deserting in affliction, for that becomes not the good and virtuous. Watch against anger; neither speak nor act in it; for, like drunkenness, it makes a man a beast, and throws people into desperate inconveniences. Avoid flatterers, for they are thieves in disguise; their praise is costly, designing to get by those they bespeak; they are the worst of creatures; they lie to flatter, and flatter to cheat; and which is worse, if you believe them, you cheat yourselves most dangerously. But the virtuous, though poor, love, cherish, and prefer. Remember David, who, asking the Lord: Who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill ? answers: He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart; in whose eyes a vile person is contemned; but he honoureth them that fear the Lord.'

Next, my children, be temperate in all things: in your diet, for that is physic by prevention; it keeps, nay, it makes people healthy, and their generation sound. This is exclusive of the spiritual advantage it brings. Be also plain in your apparel; keep out that lust which reigns too much over some; let your virtues be your ornaments, remembering life is more than food, and the body than raiment. Let your furniture be simple and cheap. Avoid pride, avarice, and luxury. Read my No Cross, no Crown.' There is instruction. Make your conversation with the most eminent for wisdom and piety, and shun all wicked men as you hope for the blessing of God and the comfort of your father's living and dying prayers. Be sure you speak no evil of any, no, not of the meanest; much less of your superiors, as magistrates, guardians, tutors, teachers, and elders in Christ.

Be no busybodies; meddle not with other folk's matters, but when in conscience and duty pressed; for it procures trouble, and is ill manners, and very unseemly to wise men. In your families remember Abraham, Moses, and Joshua, their integrity to the Lord, and do as you have them for your examples. Let the fear and service of the living God be encouraged in your houses, and that plainness, sobriety, and moderation in all things, as becometh God's chosen people; and as I advise you, my beloved children, do you counsel yours, if God should give you any. Yea, I counsel and command them as my posterity, that they love and serve the Lord God with an upright heart, that he may bless you and yours from generation to generation.

And as for you, who are likely to be concerned in the government of Pennsylvania and my parts of East Jersey, especially the first, I do charge you before the Lord God

and his holy angels, that you be lowly, diligent, and tender, fearing God, loving the people, and hating covetousness. Let justice have its impartial course, and the law free passage. Though to your loss, protect no man against it; for you are not above the law, but the law above you. Live, therefore, the lives yourselves you would have the people live, and then you have right and boldness to punish the transgressor. Keep upon the square, for God sees you: therefore, do your duty, and be sure you see with your own eyes, and hear with your own ears. Entertain no lurchers, cherish no informers for gain or revenge, use no tricks, fly to no devices to support or cover injustice; but let your hearts be upright before the Lord, trusting in him above the contrivances of men, and none shall be able to hurt or supplant.

ROBERT BARCLAY.

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The two great founders of Quakerism, as a respectable and considerable religious body in this country, were ROBERT BARCLAY and WILLIAM PENN. Both were gentlemen by birth and education, amiable and accomplished men, who sacrificed worldly honours, and suffered persecution for conscience' sake. Barclay was born at Gordonstown, in Morayshire, December 23, 1648. He was educated at the Scots College at Paris, of which his uncle was rector, but returned to his native country in 1664. Two years afterwards, his father, Colonel Barclay of Ury, in Kincardineshire, made open profession of the principles of Quakerism; and in 1667, when only nineteen years of age, Robert Barclay became fully convinced,' as his friend William Penn has expressed it, and publicly owned the testimony of the true light.' His first defence of the new doctrines appeared in 1670, and bore the title of Truth cleared of Calumnies.' It was a reply to a work published in Aberdeen. About this time (1672), Barclay walked through the streets of Aberdeen clothed in sackcloth and ashes, and published a 'Seasonable Warning and Serious Exhortation to, and Expostulation with, the Inhabitants of Aberdeen.' Other controversial treatises followed: 'A Catechism and Confession of Faith,' 1673; and The Anarchy of the Ranters,' &c. 1674. His great work, originally written and published in Latin, appeared in 1676, and is entitled 'An Apology for the true Christian Divinity, as the same is held forth and preached by the People called in scorn Quakers, &c.' The 'Apology' of Barclay is a learned and methodical treatise, very different from what the world expected on such a subject, and it was therefore read with avidity both in Britain and on the continent. Its most remarkable theological feature is the attempt to prove that there is an internal light in man, which is better fitted to guide him aright in religious matters than even the Scriptures themselves; the genuine doctrines of which he asserts to be rendered uncertain by various readings in different manuscripts, and the fallibility of translators and interpreters. These circumstances, says he, ' and much more which might be alleged, put the minds, even of the learned, into infinite doubts, scruples, and inextricable difficulties; whence we may very safely conclude, that Jesus Christ, who promised to be always with his children, to lead them into all truth, to guard them against the devices of the enemy, and to establish their faith

upon an unmovable rock, left them not to be principally ruled by that which was subject, in itself, to many uncertainties; and therefore he gave them his Spirit as their principal guide, which neither moths nor time can wear out, nor transcribers nor translators corrupt; which none are so young, none so illiterate, none in so remote a place but they may come to be reached and rightly informed by it.' It would be erroneous, however, to regard this work of Barclay as an exposition of all the doctrines which have been or are prevalent among the Quakers, or, indeed, to consider it as anything more than the vehicle of such of his own views as, in his character of an apologist, he thought it desirable to state. The dedication of Barclay's Apology' to King Charles II. has always been particularly admired for its respectful yet manly freedom of style, and for the pathos of its allusion to his majesty's own early troubles, as a reason for his extending mercy and favour to the persecuted Quakers. Thou hast tasted,' says he, of prosperity and adversity; thou knowest what it is to be banished thy native country, to be over-ruled as well as to rule and sit upon the throne; and, being oppressed, thou hast reason to know how hateful the oppressor is to both God and man: if, after all these warnings and advertisements, thou dost not turn unto the Lord with all thy heart, but forget Him, who remembered thee in thy distress, and give thyself up to follow lust and vanity, surely great will be thy condemnation.' But this appeal had no effect in stopping persecution; for after Barclay's return from Holland and Germany, which he had visited in company with Fox and Penn, he was, in 1677, imprisoned along with many other Quakers, at Aberdeen, through the instrumentality of Archbishop Sharp. In prison he wrote a treatise on Universal Love.' He was soon liberated, and subsequently gained favour at court. Both Penn and he were on terms of intimacy with James II; and just before the sailing of the Prince of Orange for England in 1688, Barclay, in a private conference with his majesty, urged James to make some concessions to the people. The death of this respectable and amiable person took place at his seat of Ury on the 3d of October 1690.

Against Titles of Honour.

We affirm positively, that it is not lawful for Christians either to give or to receive these titles of honour, as, Your Holiness, Your Majesty, Your Excellency, Your Eminency, &c.

First, because these titles are no part of that obedience which is due to magistrates or superiors; neither doth the giving them add to or diminish from that subjection we owe to them, which consists in obeying their just and lawful commands, not in titles and designations.

Secondly, we find not that in the Scripture any such titles are used, either under the law or the gospel; but that, in speaking to kings, princes, or nobles, they used only a simple compellation, as, O King and that without any further designation, save, perhaps, the name of the person, as, 'O King Agrippa,' &c.

Thirdly, it lays a necessity upon Christians most frequently to lie; because the persons obtaining these titles, either by election or hereditarily, may frequently be found to have nothing really in them deserving them, or answering to them: as some, to whom it is said, 'Your Excellency,' having nothing of excellency in them;

and who is called 'Your Grace,' appear to be an enemy to grace; and he who is called 'Your Honour,' is known to be base and ignoble. wonder what law of man, or what patent, ought to oblige me to make a lie, in calling good evil and evil good. I wonder what law of man can secure me, in so doing, from the best judgment of God, that will make me count for every idle word. And to lie is something more. Surely Christians should be ashamed that such laws, manifestly crossing the law of God, should be among them.

Fourthly, as to those titles of Holiness,' 'Eminency,' and 'Excellency,' used among the Papists to the pope and cardinals, &c.; and Grace,' Lordship,' and "Worship,' used to the clergy among the Protestants, it is a most blaphemous usurpation. For if they use Holiness' and 'Grace' because these things ought to be in a pope or a bishop, how came they to usurp that peculiarly to themselves? Ought not holiness and grace to be in every Christian ? And so every Christian should say 'Your Holiness' and 'Your Grace' one to another. Next, how can they in reason claim any more titles than were practised and received by the apostles and primitive Christians, whose successors they pretend they are; and as whose successors, and no otherwise, themselves, I judge, will confess any honour they seek is due to them? Now, if they neither sought, received, nor admitted such honour nor titles, how came these by them? If they say they did, let them prove it if they can: we find no such thing in the Scripture. The Christians speak to the apostles without any such denomination, neither saying, 'If it please your Grace,' Holiness,' nor your Worship;' they are neither called My Lord Peter, nor My Lord Paul; nor yet Master Peter, nor Master Paul; nor Doctor Peter, nor Doctor Paul; but singly Peter and Paul; and that not only in the Scripture, but for some hundreds of years after so that this appears to be a manifest fruit of the apostasy. For if these titles arise either from the office or worth of the persons, it will not be denied but the apostles deserved them better than any now that call for them. But the case is plain; the apostles had the holiness, the excellency, the grace; and because they were holy, excellent, and gracious, they neither used nor admitted such titles; but these having neither holiness, excellency, nor grace, will needs be so called to satisfy their ambitious and ostentatious mind, which is a manifest token of their hypocrisy.

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Fifthly, as to that title of Majesty' usually ascribed to princes, we do not find it given to any such in the Holy Scripture; but that it is specially and peculiarly ascribed unto God. We find in the Scripture the proud king Nebuchadnezzar assuming this title to himself, who at that time received a sufficient reproof, by a sudden judgment which came upon him. Therefore, in all the compellations used to princes in the Old Testament, it is not to be found, nor yet in the New. Paul was very civil to Agrippa, yet he gives him no such title. Neither was this title used among Christians in the primitive times.

RICHARD BAXTER.

RICHARD BAXTER (1615-1691) is justly esteemed the most eminent of the Nonconformist divines of this period. He was a native of Rowton, in Shropshire, and was educated chiefly at Wroxeter. My faults,' he said, 'are no disgrace to any university, for I was of none; I have little but what I had out of books, and inconsiderable helps of country tutors. Weakness and pain helped me to study how to die; that set me on studying how to live.' In 1638 he was ordained, and was appointed master of the Free School of Dudley. From 1640 to 1642 he was pastor of Kidderminster, and was highly popular and useful. During the Civil War he sided with the Parliament, and accepted the office of chaplain in the army, in which capacity he was present at the sieges of Bridgewater, Exeter, Bristol, and Worcester. He was disgusted with the frequent and vehement disputes about liberty of conscience, and was glad to leave the army and return to Kidderminster. Whilst there, whilst recovering from a severe illness,

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