we may at once conclude, has not justified; for an unsanctified believer is just as great an anomaly and impossibility, under the gospel covenant, as a justified unbeliever. There are no good works without faith; and there is no faith without good works.— How strikingly does the apostle Paul teach us the double lesson, of the exclusion of all works from the ground of our salvation, and yet the necessity of them in all the saved, as the very fulfilment of God's purpose in their new creation, when he thus sets the two in immediate juxtaposition :-" For by grace are ye saved, through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." Eph. ii. 8-10.-The sinner, then, who presumes to give his own works any place in the ground of his acceptance and salvation,-and the sinner who imagines himself accepted and saved, without bringing forth good works, are equally in error. The one mistakes the foundation of gospel hope; the other mistakes the nature of gospel salvation. The one, in joining his own works with the righteousness of Christ, unites what God has separated; the other, in fancying himself justified by Christ's righteousness, while he has not been sanctified by Christ's Spirit, separates what God has united. God "justifies the

ungodly"—that is, no godliness of theirs, even supposing they had it, enters into the ground of their acceptance :-but he does not justify them, continuing in their ungodliness. "The grace of God which bringeth salvation-teacheth them, that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, they should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world; looking for that blessed hope, even the glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ; who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works." Titus ii. 11-14.

I have dwelt long upon this subject; because, in the strictest sense of the term, it may be denominated fundamental; and because, from the writings of Barclay and others of your older authors, there is reason to fear that your "Society" has, to no inconsiderable extent, been leavened with vague, and crude, and unscriptural conceptions of it. I rejoice that such a man as Joseph John Gurney has, by his publications, and otherwise, been exerting himself to

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'purge out this old leaven," and in its room to substitute-not new, but still older,-the better leaven of the doctrine of prophets and apostles. But, while he states truth, why does he not more explicitly condemn error? Why is he so chary in finding any fault with the writers of his own body by whom the corrupt leaven was introduced, and propagated, and fixed,

writers from whom he differs so essentially, that, if his doctrine be true and saving, theirs must be false and perilous? Is it, that he is afraid of exposing to question the doctrine of immediate inspiration, or what, in more modified terms, he denominates "the perceptible influence and guidance of the Spirit of truth?" If so, the course is not worthy of him. He is sacrificing truth to unity; and to a unity, too, that is not real, but external merely; not a unity of sound principle, but of expediency and esprit du corps; a mechanical admixture of various and discordant materials, rather than an intimate, homogeneous, chemical affinity. The points of difference are of such a nature and magnitude, as not to admit of neutrality, or of compromise. No middle course can be steered between them. If the views entertained by him of the doctrine of justification be in harmony with the mind of Christ, then must those of Penn and Barclay be "another gospel." The question, which of the two is genuine Quakerism, is one of comparatively little moment. But assuredly, the religious community which harbours, and tolerates, and cherishes both, is, in no trivial degree, "divided against itself;" and, in such circumstances, infinite Wisdom has forewarned of the result. The attempt to maintain it in vigour and prosperity, when the materials of it, coming to light, are found to be so essentially and extensively heterogeneous, is to "fight against God;" for

it involves unfaithfulness to truth, to Christ, to the church, and to the souls of men.-If the doctrine of justification by grace, through faith in the righteousness and atonement of Jesus, be the "articulus stantis ecclesiæ ;" then must the doctrine by which justification is placed on any ground of human merit, or on any thing else whatever than the divine virtue of the Redeemer's mediatorial work, be the "articulus cadentis ecclesiæ ;"—an element, in as far as it exists, of decay and ruin.-In regard to those who hold such an error, I cannot for a moment admit a doubt, the apostle would have applied, in all its imperativeness, his injunction to Timothy-" From such withdraw thyself."

My next letter will consist principally of an examination of those passages of the Scriptures which are usually adduced in support of your "inward

light."

Yours respectfully,

R. W.

LETTER VII.

ON THE SCRIPTURAL AUTHORITY PLEADED FOR THE "INWARD LIGHT."

RESPECTED Friends,

THE Confusion in Robert Barclay's mind, by which, so very strangely, he has been led to confound and blend together, in his statements and illustrations, doctrines so palpably distinct as those of justification and sanctification, may be traced, without difficulty, as I have formerly hinted, to the predominant influence of his views of the "inward light,”which, in his case, as in that of many more, only

-"led to bewilder, and dazzled to blind."

-That light, we have seen, consists not in the knowledge of any thing that is externally revealed, or that comes to the mind of its possessor through any extraneous channel. It is a principle within, common to all that are born into the world; yet not inherited or bestowed by nature, but the gift of the Holy Spirit, and the fruit of Christ's mediation. Now, what I