Orthodoxy of Irish Quakers. THE following assertion of soundness of faith on the part of certain Quakers is from the Waterford Chronicle, of Nov. 6, for which we are indebted to some unknown friend in Ireland. We presume the subscribers are Plain Friends, and mean to inform and not deceive their countrymen, but we must tell them, if we can

reach them, that there is not a syllable of their creed which many Unitarians could not repeat with perfect good faith.

To the Editor of the Waterford Chronicle.

THOMAS WHITE,
JOSEPH STRANGMAN,
JAMES GATCHell,
RICHARD ALLEN,
GEORGE P. RIDGWAY.

"We own and believe in the only wise, omnipotent and everlasting God, the creator of all things in heaven and earth, and the preserver of all that he hath made; who is God over ail, blessed for ever; to whom be all honour, glory, dominion, praise and thanksgiving, both now and for evermore! And we own and believe in Jesus Christ, his beloved and only-begotten Son, in whom he is well pleased, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, and born of the Virgin Mary; in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins; who is the express image of the invisible God, the first-born of every creature, by whom were all things created that are in heaven and in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, dominions, principalities or powers; all things were created by him. And we own and believe that he was made a sacrifice for sin, who knew no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth; that he was crucified for us in the flesh, without the gates of Jerusalem; and that he was buried, and rose again the third day by the power of his Father, for our justification; and that he ascended up into heaven, and now sitteth

at the right hand of God. This Jesus,

who was the foundation of the holy prophets and apostles, is our foundation; and we believe there is no other foundation to be laid but that which is already laid, even Christ Jesus; who tasted death for every man, shed his blood for all men, is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world."

Original Letters from the Baxter MSS. in Dr. Williams's Library. "Of Orignal Sinne.” [Concluded from p. 580.]

P. an if

justice give no security from damnation to ye innocent," I answer, yt ye punishment is no other than what God might have inflicted naturally, virtute domini.

doe as to imputed guilt, and doe lesse 2. I give y same security as you expose them as to y corruption of nature, by makeing it lesse nocent, & sure it is but cold comfort yt you by a ffetch can make them deserve their punishement more by makeing them more nocent.

3. While we plead for the justice of God, we should accord our discourse with his goodnesse. How can infinite goodnesse expose so many creatures to ye hazard of eternal damnation in ye sense in wch y word is commonly taken, by one act of one man, before they were borne? I thinke my way is y best to free ye Christian religion from unnecessary difficulty, & that we ascribe not to God y' wh becometh him not, as Placæus is quoted to say, p. 223, 1. 2, wch I wish he had been as carefull to doe in ye great article, & not give so much scandal to Jews & Turks as we doe. I doubt also we use it as a salvo to turne off ye desert from ourselves. I have knowne some who were very free in confessing of original sinne, but cruell hard to acknowledge a fault of their owne, of wch they were actually guilty.

5. Infants are capeable of moral good, &c.

I take nothing for morally good in a proper sense but doeing good, or an acquired habit of virtue, but there may be a great inclineablenesse to virtue wch is none of these, but a very good thing, & consequently ye privation no

moral evil in proprietie of speech, but an evill thing; for as much as w" the tempter comes he hath great materials to worke upon, & had some in Adam before ye Fall. Neverthelesse I will not denie but yt there may be such an evill, though involuntary dis position, whether negative or priva tive, as may render a man wholly unfitte for ye societie of God & his holy angels, as a man throwne into filthe and mire by a bull is unfitte to come in y' pickle into ye presence of a prince: ye very corruptibilitie of our bodies as flesh and blood must be cleansed, or we cannot be fitte for ye kingdome of heaven, 1 Cor. xv. 50. In opposition to this, X' is said to be made holy, Heb. vii. 26. Some legal uncleanesses might be types of mere humane infirmities.

6. Ye Scripture saying little of infants, quâ infants as to their salvation, I leave y" to God, but I know y' by ye sentence upon Adam they are all reputative sinners, and obnoxious to eternal death, wch, with ye reputative staine wch I have graunted, may be sufficient to satisfie the texts alledged by you p. 94; but I doubt yt by ye like texts it may be proved y they, believe: to omit y fayth cometh by heareing, I say, y' neither act nor habit of fayth can be without some knowledge of the object to wch it is relative but infants apprehend not one simple terme, much lesse do they judge or syllogyze.

Obiter, p. 94, lin. penult. If one died for all, then were all dead, i. e. were by profession & engagement dead to sinne, or all must die to sinne, as v. 15; so Dr. Lush: & I think truly infants are relatively holy candi dates & in ye way, & so far to be sure X died for yn y their reputative sinne shall be no hindrance to yTM in ye way to salvation, if for ye present there be no incapacity in ye subject.

7. Christ was baptized, yet no sinner: there is no absolute necessitie y all ye ends of baptism should be preserved; their relative holynesse, their dedication as honourable to ye infants, & an engagement upon their parents to bring them up in ye nurture & admonition of ye Lord, may, with other circumstances, excuse ye doeing of it, but their owne solemne engagement, & ye grand uses of baptism, both to themselves. & others,

are lost. Quid festinat innocens ætas ad remissionem peccatorum ?— Tertull. I thinke it was better if they were brought to X for his blessing, i. e. to ye church, for ye churches prayers.

8. If infants have no sinne, they must eyther never come to judgment I answer, they shall be judged as they are, but how they are sinners, I have showed. Some thinke y' John v. 28 is allegoricall of ye calling yẽ Jews & Gentiles.

The context in Rom. xiv. 12, is of ye adult, but compare yt place with 2 Cor. v. 10, according to yt he hath done; what have infants done? So v.11, "Every tongue shall confesse;" what can infants confesse? As to Rom. iii. 20, adde "By ye law is ye knowledge of sinne," i. e. we know y we are sinners, but what doe infants know? Are they justified by fayth? What doe they believe? Name one thing.

9. Rom. iii. 23, &c. "All have sinned," &c. How I may graunt yt all have sinned without limitation, hath been said; but surely there is great reason to limit ye universal, v. 9. Wee have before proved (Rom. i. & ii. of adult Pagans & Jews) yt Jews & Gentiles, he sayth not men & infants, are all under sinne; but methinkes ye guilt of Adam's sinne imputed being alike in all infants, all infants should be saved. I should like yt best; & ye punishment from immediate parents, sinners, may be temporal; ye law superadded only a more valid obligation to them who trans gressed it, & were under it; i. e. ye Jews, to whom also as perfect workers it promised eternal life by rigorous exposition in a secret sense, (yet intended & graunted by ye Jews,) & was ye only ratified covenant in force before Xt, grace being, in Old-Testament times, extraordinary; yet might yt law be expositorie of what was, ex naturâ rei, due to ye whole world as under ye law of nature, & merely by virtue of their works, done also by ye power of nature.

10. How infants may be reputed sinners, I have said already, & concerning their salvation.

I derive ye immortality of ye soule (wch you thinke may be ex traduce, p. 104, as well as I) from ye resurrection of ye dead, & not from philoso

bruits, for they are relatively, radically & dispositively cleane or uncleane; & though they be no otherwise loyall or disloyall, yet are they ye king's subjects, & justly punished or rewarded for their parents' faults, sensu predicto; no wise king yet ever thought all treytours' posteritie inherently disloyall; & therefore if the princes be of good nature, they moderate ye punishments, as ye common good will permit: here summum jus summa injuria. But I had better make y bruits than devils.

16. I graunt a relative holinesse in ye children of believers; & if you will call it so, a remote federal holinesse. I can prove some sort of federal holinesse in ye unbelieveing Jews still; what then, must they needs therefore be baptized & receive ye Lord's Supper, as was long used in ye church? for ye one, they cannot examine ym selves, & for ye other, they cannot make profession of their faith; therefore, per fictionem juris, they are faine to supply ye defect in an artificial way by ye use of godfathers & of godmothers; I suppose a relique of adult baptism. Pagans' children may be sayd by nature, i. e. by birth, ye children of wrath, both in respect of Adam, as before, & in respect of their next parents as idolatours, & likely to bringe them up such; wch children, notwithstanding any inherent sinne, might have been educated by Xns, & been goode Xns

Ye Socinians answer, puca, i. e. really, not much amiss, but I see no need, they were children of wrath by birth, breeding & practice. How man that is borne of a woman is uncleane, I have saide; yet sometimes hyperbolicall expressions must be allowed, & are elegant, especially in poeticall bookes. David sayth, Ye wicked speake lies from ye womb. So Ps. li., In sinne did my mother conceive me. See what Dr. Hammond, in loc. sayth from Chrysostom, p. 269, l. 27.

17. From ye necessitie of regeneration. Regeneration is an advance above eyther uncorrupt nature or mere moralitie.

18. Wch doctrine makes God ye author of sinne, yrs or mine, whereby no man is necessitated to sinne, properly so called, but as he freely willeth it his owne selfe: hath been said already yt text in 1 John i. 8,

10, is commonly misunderstood, it is spoken in ye person of great sinners who walked in darknesse, v. 6, yet boasted. See Dr. Hammond's Annot. in loc.

James iii. 2, speakes but of as many things wherein all men offend, & the context supposeth men might be better. If ye unfalen angels, as Calvin sayth upon those words-He chardged his angels, &c., might have their infirmities, what wonder yt mankind, justly under a curse, should generally be so bad! I am well assured yt ye apostle, Rom. i., speaketh but of ye generalitie of men, who were yet worse than by necessitie of nature they needed to be: men may be ill inclined, & yet not Sodomites, without much actual evil inclination; will men throw such things upon innocent nature? That word innocent, in our use, often implies as much as a very sweet & huge good disposition: but in this question it is to be taken for indifferent, or rather inclineing to evill. Consider whether an honest & good master may not take (I will not say of an indifferent, but of a very good nature) an apprentice or scholar, & yet lay so many commands on him in so many kinds, as yt there may be a moral impossibilitie, or a thousand to one but yt at ye long run he will break one or other of them. I confesse you dispute with great force & judgement, but let me entreat you to consider what I have said, especially under my 4th argument, & in answer to your 10th.

19. By ye carnal mind, Rom. viii., I understand yt wch is in actual, & from thence habitual sinners; but some from their childehood are more towardly & better, as Josiah & Timothy.

20. Humane authorities are as ye reasons wch they produce; ye most ancient ffathers were so much for free will, yt they must needs rather swim above my opinion, than sinke under yours. As for ye Pelagians, if they be not misrepresented, wch is a thing commonly enough done, as wee nowa-days find by experience, I am not concerned in ym. After all this, consider what you say yt Xt was punished for our sinnes, p. 195; yet he was not ye commiter of ym. No, indeed! How could a man commit ye sinnes of a woman, quâ such, & I say yt

Xt was punished sacrificially, although he had no inherent sinne, nor imputed in a proper sense: therefore also may Adam's children be punish'd tho' they have no inherent sinne properly so called, but reputative only from a relative foundation & dangerous inclinations. Consider yt when you say, p. 175, yt God judgeth of things as they are, & doth not punish men without any desert in y, yt God's decree did necessarily require some relative foundation, but yt foundation did not necessitate yt decree; wch yet being supposed there is not ye same reason of other sinnes, whether Adam's or our next parent's, as of yt one, as also appears, Rom. v. 16, as before. Yet I do thinke yt God would not have hazarded so many for yt one sinne, if he had not intended to have sent a Redeemer to make expiation: quære, whether yt sinne might not be in part a kind of sacramental (if I may so call it) instruction to ye world of what they might justly expect, from following actually their own inordinate & wilful appetites, wch God foresaw they would doe ffreely of themselves? as I have said before of ye law of Moses as expositorie of ye law of na

ture.

I receive ye principall thing intended in your second part, viz. yt immediate parents' sinnes may be punished in their children, & I thinke though they were begotten before ye fault was committed, for relations sake, without any respect to any propagation of a physical or morall qualitie, in semine. May not Eve's sinne be said to be imputed to all ye women by relation of ye sex? See 1 Tim. ii. 14; & we see it ordinary for parents to blush at ye hearing of their children's faults, & others nearly related, even when nothing can be thought to reflect upon y but from relation. I hinted yt much of our depraved nature is from immediate parents, (in my paper,) in these words, " & ye wickednesse of ye world." I have heard many wish that parents could see their own pride & passions, &c., in their children, though much of this is often by ill teaching & example. You chardged Dr. Taylour too bluntly with denieing originall sinne; he sayth it is a sinne metonymically, i. e. ye effect of sinne &ye cause of many. I was told by a ffriend yt BP. Brownrigg said his

booke deserved to be burnt. Better burn ye bookes of heretics than their persons. I fear some otherwise good men have a little too much of the furious spirit of antichrist in y". For my part, I thinke to holde yt men ought to be punished for yr consciences in things merely spirituall, where is no civil injury, is a worse heresy than ye worst opinion yt ever I saw yet concerning originall sinne. Sept. 19, 1681.

I

SIR,

REJOICE that the attention of your readers has been directed to Sunday-Schools. Their importance well deserves the consideration of every one who wishes to diminish ignorance and prejudice, and to promote knowledge and universal good-will. My experience of their general adoption widely differs from what Verus mentions (p. 549); but Yorkshire has in that respect furnished an example deserving of imitation by every other part of the kingdom. As inquiries have been made as to the cheapest method of conducting Sunday-schools, the following hints are suggested. The two first classes are taught by lessons fixed on boards, and suspended so that one board serves for a whole class, which should not exceed six children: the teacher using a pointer to the letter or word to be learned. The two next classes should be taught in easy lessons from scripture. The meaning should be explained by the teacher; and before a new lesson is learned, an examination should take place of what was before learned. The oldest classes might write, as a reward for diligence and improvement; this assists spelling; and the copies should contain a moral or religious truth, which should always be committed to memory.Those children that have behaved properly, might be permitted to carry home a tract to read in their family, and to return it the next Sunday. When old enough, they should give an account of it to their teacher. It is pleasing to see the list of small tracts increase, that can be distributed at a small expense. Among others may be mentioned, Why do I go to an Unitarian Chapel? An Appeal to the Scriptures in Vindication of Unitarianism; An Abridgment of the same, by Alexander, of Yarmouth; Dr. S.