all our communion with God, and comfortable dependence on Him. (III.) By the decree of God, for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels are predestinated or fore-ordained to eternal life.. others being left to act in their sin to their just condemnation . . . (X.) . . Infants dying in infancy are regenerated and saved by Christ, through the Spirit; who worketh when, where, and how He pleaseth; so also are all elect persons, who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the Word. Others, not elected, though they may be called by the ministry of the Word .. neither will nor can truly come to Christ, and therefore cannot be saved ..(XIV.) The grace of faith, whereby the elect are enabled to believe .. is ordinarily wrought by the ministry of the Word; by which also, and by the administration of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, prayer, and other means appointed of God, it is increased and strengthened . . . (XXVI.) The Catholic or universal Church, which (with respect to the internal work of the spirit and truth of grace) may be called invisible, consists of the whole number of the elect.. The officers appointed by Christ to be chosen and set apart by the Church.. are bishops or elders, and deacons . . It is incumbent on the Churches to whom they minister, to communicate to them of all their good things, according to their ability; so as they may have a comfortable supply, without being themselves entangled in secular affairs... (XXIX.) Baptism is an ordinance of the New Testament .. Those who do actually profess repentance towards God, faith in, and obedience to, our Lord Jesus Christ, are the only proper subjects of this ordinance.. Immersion, or dipping of the person in water, is necessary to the due administration of that ordinance. (XXX.). . All ignorant and ungodly persons, as they are unfit to enjoy communion with Christ, so are they unworthy of the Lord's table. LECTURE V. THE QUAKERS. A.D. 1646. Leading Idea:-Spirituality of the Church. Method adopted:-Abandonment of all external ritual whatsoever. 'Ad hanc ergò interiorem vocem aures cordis erigi admonemus; ut loquentem Deum intùs audire, quàm foris hominem, studeatis. . Nec sanè laborandum est, ut ad vocis nujus perveniatur auditum. Labor est potiùs aures obturare ne audias.' (S. Bernard, de Conversione, cap. i.) A.D. CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 150. Montanism appears in Asia Minor. 1200. Manichæanism, in South Europe. 1350. Wicliffe; and pre-Reformation Mystics. 1552. Preludes to Quakerism, in France, &c. 1646. George Fox (æt. 22) appears in public. 1653. Persecutions, in England and America. 1654. First preaching in London (Howgill.) 1655. First preaching in Ireland, and on the Continent. 1656. Fanaticism at Bristol, &c. (James Naylor.) 1660. Charles II. promises them toleration. Venner's insurrection causes severities. 1666. William Penn becomes a Quaker. New central Meeting House in Gracechurch-street. 1669. First Yearly Meeting' in London. 1672. Charles II.'s Declaration of Indulgence: accepted by Quakers. 1676. Wilkinson and Story's secession; they object to discipline. Barclay's Apology published in Latin. Great controversies with Baptists. 1681. Pennsylvania granted to William Penn. 1689. Toleration Act. 1816. 'Peace Society' established. 1827. Hicks-ites secede; holding Socinian views. 1828. Test Act repealed. 1833. Abolition of the slave trade. 1837. Evangelical Friends' secede, in London 1845. Mrs. Fry ('the female Howard') died. LECTURE V. THE QUAKERS. 'The spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets. For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace.'-1 Cor. xiv. 32. THA HAT the Church of Christ should perpetually need reformation and cleansing from (what has been well called) the ever-recurring 'rust of superstition,' is no more than all good men, in all ages, have sadly confessed. That zealous and active minds should eagerly desire to set their hands to this work, and be tempted to break up the divine order of the Church in their impatience, to root out the tares without regard to the general interests of the slowly ripening crop, and even to invent new theories altogether and new plans, which God hath never planned and His Church has never acknowledged, all this is too likely, when we remember what human nature is, and what the science of polity should lead us to expect and prepare for. But that good and Christian men should not only feel the temptation, but should also give way to it, and actually so far lose their self-command as to hold themselves called by Almighty God to break the engine in pieces, because the fire has sunk too low and its work is being imperfectly done, this is indeed a strange and melancholy spectacle of human infirmity and self-will. And yet even this too, waste though it seem, is capable of being employed by the great Master of all for the good of His Church in the end. We are now engaged on a study of the second pair of separatist denominations, which seceded from the Church during that torrid epoch of abnormal growths of every kind, the seventeenth century. The first pair of Dissenting bodies belonged (you will remember) to the sixteenth century,-viz. the Congregationalists and the Romanists. And they went off from the Church on questions merely of polity and external order. The second pair, with which we are now dealing, the Baptists and the Quakers,—departed from the Church rather on questions of internal order, of domestic discipline (so to speak) and especially of ritual; the Baptists being -in their own way, and with their attention fixed exclusively on 'baptism'—the high Ritualistic party among Dissenters, while the Quakers, on the other hand (with whom we are to be occupied to-day), gave way to an almost distempered aversion to ritual and outward expression of every sort and kind, and inscribed on the banner of their very small, but determined and highly influential party, the motto of 'Spirituality'.' 1 Cf. Fox, Journal, i. 75 (seventh edition, 1852): 'Now as I went to Nottingham, on a first-day in the morning (1649], I espied_the_great Steeple-house; and the Lord said unto me, "Thou must go and cry against yonder great Idol, and against the worshippers therein.". The preacher told the people it "was the Scriptures, by which they were to try all doctrines, religions, opinions." Now the Lord's power was SO mighty upon me, and so strong in me, that I could not hold, but was made to cry out and say, “O no, it is not the Scriptures!" and I told first at work to pervert the spirituality of the Christian worship.'Barclay, Apology, p. 219: 'We judge it our duty, to hold forth that pure and spiritual worship, which is acceptable to God.'-Evans, Exposition, p. x. [an American authorized work, 1827]: 'The peculiar views which |