made him weary of being of one side, and more easily drawn to hearken to reason. He was one that was not easily drawn to believe as another doth, or hold an opinion for the author's sake, not out of judgement, but faction; for what he held was clearly his own, which made him but one half the Parliament's; he was mainly for the liberty of the subject, and privilege of Parliament; but not at all for their new opinions in

Church Government."

Baxter, against the Quaker Assertion that there was no true Church before George Fox.

"Is not that man," says BAXTER, “ either an infidel and enemy to Christ, or stark mad with pride, that can believe that Christ had no Church till now, and that all the ministers of the Gospel for 1600 years were the ministers of the Devil (as they say of us that tread in their steps), and that all the Christians of that 1600 years are damned (as now they dare denounce against those that succeed them), and that God made the world, and Christ died for it, with a purpose to save none but a few Quakers, that the world never knew till a few years ago, or at least a few heretics that were their predecessors of old!"—Epistle prefixed to his Quaker's Catechism.

Absurd Scruples.

"FOR there are in actions, besides the proper ingredients of their intrinsical lawfulness or consonancy to reason, a great many outsides and adherencies, that are considerable beyond the speculation. The want of this consideration hath done much evil in many ages; and amongst us nothing hath been more usual, than to dispute concerning a rite or sacramental, or a constitution, whether it be necessary, and whether the contrary be not lawful; and if it be found probably so as the inquirers would have it, immediately they reduced it to practice, and caused disorder and scandal, schism and uncharitableness amongst men, whilst

they thought that Christian liberty could not be preserved in the understanding, unless they disorder all things by a practical conclusion."-JEREMY TAYLOR, vol. 12, p.

73.

"It is a strange pertness and boldness of spirit, so to trust every fancy of my own, as to put the greatest interest upon it; so to be in love with every opinion and trifling conceit, as to value it beyond the peace of the Church, and the wiser customs of the world, or the laws and practices of a wise and well-instructed community of men."JEREMY TAYLOR, vol. 12, p. 73.

The War in the Netherlands produced our Rebellion.

"QUEEN ELIZABETH had all along supported the rebels in the Netherlands, before England had declared war with Spain; and many of her best subjects did not relish such proceedings; in so much that Dr. Bilson was put upon writing a book by way of justification, intituled True Difference between Christian Subjection and Unchristian Rebellion, Oxford, 4to, 1585, which neither satisfied the scruples of a great many, and proved fatal to England in King Charles I.'s reign, when the rebels made use of Dr. Bilson's arguments in favour of popular insurrection." - DODD's Church History of England, vol. 2, p. 54.

Man's Free-will circumscribed by God's Providence.

"FOR a man is circumscribed in all his ways by the providence of God, just as he is in a ship; for although the man may walk freely upon the decks, or pass up and down in the little continent, yet he must be carried whither the ship bears him. A man hath nothing free but his will, and that indeed is guided by laws and reasons; but although by this he walks freely, yet the divine Providence is the ship, and God is the pilot, and the contingencies of the world are

sometimes like the fierce winds, which carry the whole event of things whither God pleases.”—JEREMY TAYLOR, vol. 12, p. 454.

Quakers formed chiefly from the Separatists

BAXTER says to the Separatists and Anabaptists-"You may see you do but prepare too many for a further progress: Seekers, Ranters, Familists, and now Quakers, and too many professed Infidels, do spring up from among you, as if this were your journey's end and the perfection of your revolt. I have heard yet from the several parts of the land but of very few that have drunk in this venom of the Ranters or Quakers, but such as have first been of your opinions and gone out at that door."— Epistle prefixed to his Quaker's Catechism.

Antiquarian Studies.

"I AM sensible there be some who slight and despise this sort of learning, and represent it to be a dry, barren, monkish study. I leave such to their dear enjoyments of ignorance and ease. But I dare assure any wise and sober man, that historical antiquities, especially a search into the notices of our own nation, do deserve and will reward the pains of any English student; will make him understand the state of former ages, the constitution of governments, the fundamental reasons of equity and law, the rise and succession of doctrines and opinions, the original of ancient and the composition of modern tongues, the tenures of property, the maxims of policy, the rites of religion, the characters of virtue and vice, and indeed the nature of mankind."-KENNETT's Preface to his Parochial Antiquities.

Credulity of Professors.

"I MUST needs profess," says Baxter, "that it is a very grievous thing in mine eyes, that after all our pains with men's souls, and after the rejoicings which we had

in their seeming conversion and zealous lives, we should yet see so much ignorance, levity and giddiness of professors, as that they are ready to entertain the most horrid abominations! That the Devil can no sooner bait his hook, but they greedily catch at it, and swallow it without chewing; yea, nothing seems too gross for them, but so it seems novelty, all goes down. I am afraid, if they go a little further, they will believe him that shall say the Devil is God and to be worshipped and obeyed. Shall I freely tell you whence all this comes? Even from hellish pride of heart.”—Epistle prefixed to his Quaker's Catechism.

Baxter thinks an Anabaptist better than a Quaker.

"IT will be said, it is but the Churches of the Separatists and Anabaptists that are emptied by these seducers; and it's best even let them alone to keep their own flocks, and secure their Churches; or if they fall off, it may show others the tendency of their ways, and so prevent their turning aside: To which I answer: 1st. Though the stream of apostates be such as first were Anabaptists or Separatists, yet here and there one of the young unsettled sort do fall into that stream that were not before of them, but perhaps inclining to them; and so do some few that had no religiousness. 2d. I had far rather that men continued Separatists and Anabaptists, than turned Quakers or plain apostates; and therefore would do all that I can to hinder such an emptying of their Churches as tendeth to the more certain filling of Hell. It's better to stop them in a condition where we may have some hope of their salvation, than to let them run into certain perdition."-Baxter, Preface to the Quaker's Catechism.

Baxter bids a new Quaker compare himself with his Teacher.

"You know," says BAXTER addressing a young unsettled friend who had fallen in

with the Quakers,-" you know you are a young man, and have had little opportunity to be acquainted with the Word of God, in comparison with what your Teacher hath had. If you presume that you are so much more beloved of God than he, that God will reveal that to you without seeking and study, which upon the greatest diligence he will not reveal to him, what can this conceit proceed from but pride? God commandeth study, and meditating day and night in his laws. Your Teacher hath spent twenty, if not an hundred hours in such meditation, where you have spent one. He hath spent twenty, if not an hundred hours in prayer to God for his Spirit of Truth and Grace, where you have spent one. His prayers are as earnest as yours: his life is much more holy and heavenly than yours. His office is to teach; and therefore God is, as it were, more engaged to be his Teacher, and to make known his truth to Him, than to you. Is it not then apparent pride for you to be confident that you are so much wiser than he, and that you are so much more lovely in God's eyes, that he will admit you more into the knowledge of his mysteries, than those that have better used his own appointed means to know them? and for you in ignorance to run about with the shell on your head, exclaiming to the world of the ignorance of your late Teachers ?—I say not that you do so: but the Quakers whom you approve of do so, and much more."-Epistle prefixed to his Quaker's Catechism.

more conditions to his salvation and more articles to his creed, I may use the words of St. Gregory Nazianzen, What dost thou seek greater than salvation? (meaning, by nice inquiries and disputes of articles beyond the simple and plain faith of the Apostles' Creed). It may be thou lookest for glory and splendour: it is enough for me, yea and the greatest thing in the world, that I be saved.-Thou goest on a hard and an untrodden path: I go the king's high way."-JEREMY TAYLOR, vol. 13, p. 169.

No Presbyterian suffered for Conscience alone after the Restoration.

"I KNOW not if the Presbyterians can instance one single person of them all, since the late revolution, that have suffered, or do at present suffer, for conscience' sake, in a pure and cleanly way; I mean for matters purely evangelical, and out of pure conscience; for such of them who did suffer, had not kept their hands clean from too much encroaching upon affairs of the State and power of the magistrate, so that they had little cause to glory in those sufferings."-GEORGE KEITH'S Way Cast up, p.

53.

Epistles read in the Quakers' Meetings.

"WE also do read at times in our Assemblies, what our Friends at a distance have been moved of the Lord to write unto us; in which reading and hearing we have felt life and living refreshment to flow among us in a large measure, through the inbreathing or inspiration of the blessed Spirit of truth."-KEITH's Rector Corrected, p.

104.

"Such kind of reading," he adds, “the reader doth read with life, through the inspiration of Life, which giveth him a living voice to read with, and maketh the words which he pronounceth (even when he readeth) living words, livingly to reach unto the hearers.”—P. 106.

wherever it begins to appear. It is remarkable that this disease prevails in some situations more than others. I have specimens of painted glass, which has stood unimpaired in a dry situation for centuries, so injured by being removed into a moist and foggy atmosphere as to have lost almost all their beauty in thirty years."-WHITAKER'S Loidis et Elmete, p. 322, note.

Charles's Promise of Favour to the Catholics-1644.

"March 5, 1644.

"-BUT it being presumption and no piety, so to trust to a good cause, as not to use all lawful means to maintain it, I have thought of one means more to furnish thee with for my assistance, than hitherto thou hast had; it is that I give thee power in my name (to whom thou thinkest most fit) that I will take away all the penal laws against the Roman Catholics in England, as soon as God shall make me able to do it, so as by their means, or in their favours, I may have so powerful assistance as may deserve so great a favour, and enable me to do it. But if thou ask what I call that assistance, I answer, that when thou knowest what may be done for it, it may easily be seen if it deserves to be so esteemed. I need not tell thee what secresy the business requires; yet this I will say, that this is the greatest point of confidence I can express to thee; for it is no thanks to me to trust thee in any thing else but in this, which is the only thing of difference in opinion between

us.

And yet I know thou wilt make a good bargain for me even in this, I trusting thee (though it concerns religion) as if thou wert a Protestant, the visible good of my affairs so much depending on it."- RUSHWORTH, part 3, vol. 2, p. 947.

Yew Tree renewing itself by its own Decom

position.

"It is a vulgar error that the duration of a tree is to be divided between growth,

decay, and a period consisting of neither. On the contrary there is in the longer lived species, a period sometimes of centuries, in which the processes of growth and decay are going on together. The principle of decay, commencing from the heart, has no effect on the external surface; and so long as any bark remains, green spray will continue to be produced, and a small quantity of carbon will be returned from the extremities, which will form a lamina of new alburnum, however slender, beneath the bark. But in the yew this is not all. The decayed wood in the centre is gradually formed into rich vegetable mould; and I once saw an instance in a yew tree of my own, casually blown down, in which multitudes of young roots had struck from the external crust, and had long maintained the tree in health from its own decomposition, besides which a new internal boll would have been gradually formed. This has actually taken place at Kirkheaton, where the roots thus struck out into the decayed cavity of the original trunk have twined themselves fantastically together, so as compleatly to incorporate with each other, and partially to unite with the interior decayed surface, yet so as to be perfectly distinguishable from it. Such an anomalous production resembles Claudian's PhoenixParens prolesque sui."

WHITAKER'S Loidis et Elmete, p. 337.