acquired by fraud and imposture. And (as Lesly himself confesses) there was no pains taken to instruct the people in the principles of Religion, nor were the children at all catechised, but left in ignorance; and the ill lives of the Clergy, who were both covetous and lewd, disposed the people to favour those that preached the Reformation!"

ART. VII.

Preamble and Penalties of An Act for preventing mischiefs and dangers that may arise by certain persons called Quakers, and others, refusing to take lawful oaths.'

'Whereas of late times [Anno 13 & 14 mo, Car. 2ndi] certain persons under the name of Quakers and other names of separation (a) have taken up and maintained sundry dangerous opinions and tenets, and among others that the taking of an oath in any case whatever, although before a lawful Magistrate, is altogether unlawful (b)and contrary to the word of God, and the said persons do daily refuse to take an oath, though lawfully tendered, whereby it often happens that the truth is wholly suppressed, and the administration of justice much obstructed (c). And whereas the said persons, under a pretence of religious worship do often assemble themselves in great numbers in several parts of this realm, to the endangering of the public peace and safety, and to the terror of the people, by maintaining a secret and strict correspondence amongst themselves, and in the mean time separating and dividing themselves from the rest of His Majesty's good and loyal subjects, and from the public congregations and usual places of Divine worship: For the redressing therefore and better preventing the many mischiefs and dangers that do and may arise by such dangerous tenets and such unlawful assemblies, be it enacted- -[Then follow the penalties: Five pounds for the first offence, ten for the second, and imprisonment for three or six months in defect of goods to levy on-and for the third offence, Transportation.] I may here remark that the liberty of assembling in great numbers for public worship (when granted) was not at any time in that age, nor has been since, abused by this people or made conducive to any evil end. And that the separat

ing in a religious respect from others, and maintaining a strict union and correspondence among themselves, are the very characteristics of all dissent and methodism;-the exercise of which privileges, purchased for them by the sacrifice on the part of the Quakers, in their measure, of estate, liberty, country, and in many cases life itself, has proved not only not dangerous to the public peace and safety, but on the contrary highly promotive of the spread of Christian truth and Christian morals in this land.

The real mischiefs and dangers' have lain in the tumultuous and arbitrary acts, and evil example therein to the people, of those who have interupted and broken up their quiet gatherings-at whieh, when the officers have been shewn what they had met about, or have had some taste of the doctrine and of the power that attended it, for themselves, they have sometimes chosen to withdraw the force prepared, and leave the assembly to finish the engagements of the season unmolested. And the real clue to these proceedings of the Legislature and the Magistrate, is still to be found in the mischiefs and dangers' apprehended to their craft, by an interested and oppressive body of men, exercising the office of the (so called Christian but in truth rather Levitical) priesthood. Ed.

(a They called themselves. Friends' and the people of God.' (b) To wit-to them, as being contrary to the word of God,

(c) Had all this been proveable against them, methinks the Title should have run An Act for remedying mischiefs and dangers that have arisen, &c. but it is very improbable, from the nature of their pursuits, and their thoroughly peaceable habits, avoiding places of dissipation and loose company, that they should be witnesses of much offence against the Law beyond their own wrongs. If, in respect of these, there was a defect of evidence on cath, that was their loss and not their crime; however desirable a remedy for it.

ART. VIII

FABLES IN VERSE &C.-CONTINUED.

The Wolf and the Crane.

Malos tueri haud tutum. Phædr. I.

The aid the destitute demand,
Give; but let Prudence guide thy hand:
To haunts of infamy and vice,

Not Pity's self should draw thee twice;
Unless sublimer sympathies,

(The Charity that opes the skies,)
At sight of the soul's wounds arise:
Then go-but let the deed appear
To such, as may thy motives clear,
Should Calumny, with busy tongue,
Prepare to find thee in the wrong.

The Wolf, a character not prone
To beg, was choking with a bone.
O'ercome with pain, he told his case
To every surgeon round the place:

But who, that viewed that mouth, would care
To trust or head or talons there?

What will not gifts! the Crane was won

To venture-and the cure was done.

But when he claimed the promised fee,
"Dost ask it," cried the Wolf,
"from me,
Who, when thy head was in my power,
Gave thee to live another hour?

The Fox and the Grapes.

Spernit superbus quæ nequit assequi. Phadr. IV. 2.
The vintage well-nigh done,-where late, on every bough,
Hung the ripe clustered grapes, now none were left below.
The hungry prowling Fox a luscious bunch espied,
Full thrice his length aloft, and long to reach it tried:
In vain; each leap was foiled; then, as he slunk away,
They are but sour as yet; I'll come another day!'
The man, whose envious mind no merit can allow,
To aught above its reach, his likeness here will know.

The Hireling. (Original.)

Till he shall accomplish, as an hireling, his day.-Job xiv. 6.

A Citizen bought an Estate in the country, and having hired a labourer to do some improvement, set him out his day's work and went to town; taking care (lest the man should want any thing) to give him his day's wage ' in advance. Next morning he found the man indeed on the spot, but nothing done. How now, fellow! what means this?' 'Don't you know, Sir!' replied the scoundrel, 'that whoso pays a man beforehand cuts off his right hand? But promise me now twice as much money as I had before, to be paid at night, and I will get through both yesterday's and to-day's task before sunset.'

Remarks by a Correspondent on Art. IV. in No. 1, On a Passage in Barclay

The Editor has received from an intimate and much valued friend the following article, to which he does not find it needful to attach any thing of his

own.

“When I read the Yorkshireman's' observations on a passage in Barclay, I confess it struck me that the sense attributed to the author in the passage in question was not fairly deducible from it; though I was quite sure that nothing was further from the Editor's design than to give an unfair or strained constructión.-Does the passage as it stands in the place referred to assert more than that man, so long as he acts in his natural corrupt spirit and will, sins in every thing he does that he is sinning whilst he performs all the acts of his life: and is not this the clear doctrine of the New Testament? But neither this doctrine, nor the passage in Barclay, appears to me to imply an opinion that the common acts of civil life are in themselves evil, but only in relation to the state of the Individual, as not being done to the glory of God, as all the acts of a good man are bound to be.

Barclay however shall be his own Commentator. In a work of his, published subsequently to his Apology, he has a very clear passage on the point in question. He is answering an opponent who urged the identity of all duties; and that as wicked men are bound to perform their civil duties, such as ploughing, &c. although there is said to be sin in them, so are they in like manner bound to pray and after distinguishing between the nature of civil and religious duties, he [Barclay] says, 'as to that Scripture cited by them-The ploughing of the wicked is sin-they do not prove that it is meant of outward ploughing. The margin of our English hath it, the light of the wicked, and Arius Montanus rendereth it on the margin Cogitatio, the thought. That the ploughing of the wicked is sin in respect of the manner and last end we grant; but that the action, materially considered, is sin we altogether deny, even in a wicked man. For the outward mechanick and bodily act is good in its nature, and profitable: as also, in so far as it may be for the maintenance of his family it is good. So that in respect to the matter and subordinate end, there is no difference betwixt the ploughing of a good man and a wicked.'

"This Extract I think will shew that Barclay's view of the passage, Prov. xxi. 4. is not materially, if at all, different from the Editor's."

"The sense in which Barclay asserts that the praying of the wicked is sin deservs to be mentioned.-The doctrine which he maintained in regard to prayer was, that no prayer could be acceptable without some degree of the influence of the Holy spirit. The gist of his argument, in the place referred to in the Apology, is against formal prayer. He contends that prayer is, in its very nature, a spiritual act; and that, hence, any outward exercise under that name, which is not excited by some spiritual feeling is a mockery [of God] and therefore in its very act sinful: but then it must be observed he does not require that a man become what we understand by spiritually minded before he can utter an acceptable prayer; nor that any precise or definite time can be fixed as elapsing, between the entirely graceless or wicked state and that in which a measure of grace is afforded him; and in which, (whether in connexion with the apprehension of danger or otherwise) he may rightly pray for those things which he feels he stands in need of.—That some measure of repentance must go before prayer will hardly be denied, since the very offering to pray importeth, in the person applying himself thereunto, a sense of his iniquity, and a desire to be delivered from it: for which end he approacheth to God to demand [ask] pardon.' Works. Folio, p. 894.

"In another place he says their opponents erroneously charged them with requiring such a lively and spiritual disposition' as being necessary according to our sense; whereas we do not lay it upon such a disposition-as if we required

such a degree of life: for the least measure of life, that is but able to carry forth the soul in any living measure of performance, is sufficient; when the soul keepeth to the measure and doth not exceed or go beyond it' p. 636. And in the same work he says, 'We do not require motives or influences of the Spirit [immediately] previous in time, although they are oft given. It sufficeth that they are previous in order of nature [in the work of conversion] as the cause is previous to the effect -which is not always in time but [must be always] in nature.'

66

p. 635. "I think it will be evident by these Extracts, that Barclay did not strain a Scripture text for want of embracing the context; and that the sense in which he held the prayer of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord, did not in any degree oppose the most sudden and spontaneous effusions of prayer, from a heart (however depraved) which was awakened to fear God, and feel its want of his mercy and protection.

"It may not, perhaps, be inappropriate to mention, here, an affecting instance of false prayer, for the authority of which I think I can vouch. A gentleman of some rank and importance in the place where he resided, and who passed for a friend of Religion, though by no means one of that class to whom the term *Saints' is scornfully applied, not unfrequently when in what is called good company drank to excess. In this state, his servant who assisted him to undress had always to support him for a time upon his knees to say his customary prayer, before he guided his staggering master to bed. Perhaps some persons will deny that such a prayer was an abomination '-that the terms cant, enthusiasm hypocrisy, so often and so freely applied to those who speak of what they truly feel and know of Religion, are truly applicable to such verbal Religionism. It may be said this is an extreme case, and I would hope it is so—but if in any case we acceptably and beneficially pray, without a genuine feeling of our wants, and some right sense of the Divine character, then I know not but the prayer, and praise, and thanksgiving of the drunkard may be welcome to an Omniscient and all-holy Being.

I may acknowledge, in conclusion, my own conviction that the leading views of Barclay in regard to prayer are truly scriptural: and though that may be sufficient to say in their favour, I will add that they appear to me also strictly conformable with the philosophy of mind, so far as we are acquainted with it, and with that philosophy which infers what is fitting to the Divine character from what is revealed to us respecting it.

"That the exercise of holy feelings by expression may spread the influence of those feelings on the mind of the utterer is very conceivable: but that the expression of things which are not felt can have this beneficial influence, is directly contrary to the effect of analogous transactions between man and man. Flattery has not been found apt to lead to affection, nor false professions of loyalty to fidelity and attachment. If He to whom we pray be an Omniscient and Holy spirit, the rewarder of good, the punisher of evil; whom all are called to love, imitate and serve is it reasonable to suppose, that he will accept the verbal homage of those who draw nigh to Him with their lips, but whose hearts (open to his view) are far from his fear and love?-As miserable penitents, Revelation indeed teaches us, that these (through the appointed means of Divine mercy) may come and ask for grace to help in the needful time: but until penitence is raised in the heart, neither does Revelation nor Reason sanction the opening of the lips of the wicked anto God. Every degree of true penitence I take to proceed from the gracious moving of that Good spirit, whose office is aptly represented by that of the angel who decended into the waters of Bethesda and troubled them; and whosoever went into the pool at that time was healed of whatsoever disease he had. T.”

Communications may be addressed, POST PAID, "For the Editor of the Yorkshireman" at the Printer's, Pontefract; at Longman & Co's, London Baines & Newsome's, Leeds; and W. Simpson's, York.

CHARLES ELCOCK, PRINTER, PONTEFRACT.

ART. I. The Storm of War: how it is raised, and how to be laid. [Concluded from page 55.]

There is not in all Holy Scripture a passage more consoling to afflicted-humanity, when, enlightened by the doctrine of the Gospel, it beholds with alarm and pity the state of the civilized world, than that noble prophecy and invitation of Isaiah, which opens the second chapter of the book bearing his name:

ye

“The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.--And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the LORD's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths.-For out of Zion shall go forth the Law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. And he shall judge among the nations and shall rebuke strong people; and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.-O house of Jacob, come ye and let us walk in the light of the LORD. "

The prophet Micah has the same in substance, with this beautiful addition, expressive of a state of entire security in peace: But they shall sit every man [at his own door] under his vine and under his figtree, and none shall make them afraid: for the mouth of the Lord of Hosts hoth spoken it.' Micah iv. 1-4. Whether the prophecy was first revealed to Micah (as the concluding sentence might be thought to intimate) and adopted by his contemporary and superior, Isaiah; who added to it that invitation to his country which, in his book, con

I