that determines what we are. Mr. GARIE had his share of these trials. Doubtless there are men who have passed through greater: but his were sufficient to furnish proof of his being not only a true christian; but an eminent servant of Jesus Christ. In his removals from place to place, he appears to have kept his eye on one object, and in patience to have possessed his soul.*

While however we admire his piety, meekness and patience, it becomes us to learn instruction from the things which befel him. In his first removal we see the danger of congregational churches submitting to the influence and direction of a few opulent individuals (whose desire it frequently is to obtain a minister who shall deal gently with their vices) till, lightly esteeming their greatest mercies, they are justly deprived of them.

In determining on the question of joining the established church, we find him frankly avowing the influence of early spiritual advantages which he had there received, of the amiable and dear friends he had in it, and of what he accounted the leadings of providence. But no mention is made of his enquiring into the revealed will of Christ upon the subject; nor any intimation given, that, after having examined the scriptures, he was convinced that a national establishment was the most consistent with them.

* Mr. Garie was one of the ministers who, in the year 1790, attempted to disseminate the gospel in some parts of Ireland. After preaching several months at Sligo, with every appearance of success, the new place of worship was rudely attacked, and the windows demolished, the day after it had been opened by Mr. Garie. A second attack followed, and also a third, until the meetinghouse was burned down, and a dreadful outrage committed on one of his principal friends. Mr. Garie still continued at his post, though in imminent danger of his life, and was obliged to change his lodgings every night. A man entered his room one evening, with a pistol in his hand, threatening his life. Mr. Garie advanced towards him, holding up a small bible; and with a smiling countenance, looked his rude visitor full in the face. Struck with his mild and innocent appearance, the man immediately retired from him, and his life was preserved. Mr. Garie afterwards returned to Scotland, where he encountered various difficulties, but was finally settled at Perth, and died in 1802.

ED.

In the repulses he met with, we cannot but perceive the lamentable evils which arise from the church being so connected with the world, as that the best interests of a christian congregation shall be decided by the prejudices and intrigues of men, who care not for its spiritual welfare, and the greater part of whom may be strangers to true religion.

We are glad to find that Mr. Garie's family, like that of Mr. PEARCE'S, has been thought worthy of the patronage of the religious public. It speaks well for our times, that the families of men who have been eminent in disinterested labours for God, are provided for by his people. The spirit discovered in Mr. Garie's diary will both reprove, and provoke to emulation, those who are in any degree likeminded; and may convince others, that religion is not a cunningly devised fable, but a solemn reality.

REVIEW OF MR. BEVANS'S DEFENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINES OF THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS.

THE religious denomination usually stiled Quakers, which had, for ages, like Issachar, been quietly dwelling in their tents, became considerably agitated at the commencement of the present century, in consequence of an American female preacher, Hannah Barnard, having disseminated Socinian principles in this country, and maintained that they were the doctrines of the primitive Quakers. An animated controversy ensued, and there were not wanting some who advocated the cause of the heretical stranger. Mr. Bevans, then in connection with this society, and since the Author of a learned and elaborate Enquiry into the Genuineness of the two first chapters of Matthew's Gospel, against the exceptions of Dr. Carpen

ter and other Socinian writers-a work which has been liberally patronised by some of the Principals of the university of Oxford-took a leading part in the present controversy, and wrote an able "Defence of the Christian Doctrines of the Society of Friends, against the charge of Socinianism." Having explored the writings of the original founders of his denomination, he saw sufficient reason to believe that their sentiments, in reference to the points in dispute, were on the side of orthodoxy, though accompanied with some ambiguous expressions which were liable to objection.

To this Defence were added, some strictures on Mr. Evans's "Sketch of the different Denominations," showing that this writer, who had intermeddled in the dispute, had not only grossly misrepresented the Quakers, in spite of all remonstrance, but that "his whole performance was evidently devoted to the cause of the Socinians and Universalists.".

Mr. Bevans became the personal friend of Mr. Fuller, and when he undertook to republish" Hannah Adams's View of Religions," to which he prefixed his incomparable Essay on Truth, Mr. Bevans furnished a valuable article for the work, under the title of "Friends," containing a correct detail of their leading sentiments. Afterwards, when Mr. Bevans published his "Defence," as stated at the head of this paper, Mr. Fuller wrote a Review of it for one of the monthly journals, which cost him, as he acknowledged, considerable labour, and furnishes one of the finest specimens of his candour and liberality, while it abounds with the usual acumen and fidelity of the writer. The introductory part of it, relating merely to the circumstances in which the controversy originated, is comprised in the above statement, in order to make room for the following judicious observations on the doctrine of atonement, the inspiration of the scriptures, and the nature of divine teaching, which are the leading points of this interesting article. ED.

Concerning the atonement or satisfaction of Christ, Penn and Claridge profess to reject what they term "the vulgar doctrine of Satisfaction;" and our author allows them to have disowned "vicarious atonement," and "the appeasing of vindictive wrath." We should be sorry to affix ideas to terms which were not in the mind of the writer; but if we understand them, atonement is reparation made to the injured authority of the divine law. "Vicarious atonement" is for that reparation to be made by a substitute, who endures the curse of the law in the sinner's stead; and "the appeasing of vindictive wrath,” is not the changing of God's mind from hatred to love; but having expressed his displeasure against sin, in the death of his Son, justice is satisfied, and he can now consistently display his compassion to sinners for Christ's sake.

We do not think it was the intention of these writers to favour the Socinian doctrine; but in opposing the crude notion of Christ's having so paid the debt, as to lay the Governor of the world under a natural obligation to discharge the debtor, and that immediately, or without the intervention of repentance and faith, we cannot but observe that they have made very near advances to it. We earnestly entreat our author and his connections to reconsider this subject, and carefully to examine whether they may not renounce this notion, without giving up our Saviour's "vicarious atonement," or his having endured the curse of God's righteous law in the sinner's stead. Were we to abandon this idea, we could affix no meaning to a great part of the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah; nor should we feel any solid ground on which to rest our everlasting hopes.

In chap. v. and vi. our author proceeds to examine the sentiments of the early Friends, concerning the Scriptures. Penn, Barclay, and others, certainly were not Socinians on this subject, any more than on the foregoing ones; but they wrote much to prove that the scriptures were not the only, nor the primary rule of faith and man

ners; for this honour they ascribe to the Spirit as dwelling in man. This position, though wide of Socinianism, yet led them to write in a manner very capable of being turned by an ingenious Socinian to the advantage of his

cause.

It is with pleasure we find the early Friends acknowledging the scriptures to have been written by divine inspiration, and to be the words of God; and also that "whatever doctrine or practice, though under pretensions to the immediate dictates and teachings of the Spirit, is contrary to them, ought to be rejected as false and erroneous." But we do not perceive the consistency between this and their denying them to be the principal rule of faith and manners; that is, the principal rule by which the other is to be judged of. Ought we to try the truth of the scriptures then, by their agreement with what we suppose to be the dictates and teachings of the Spirit within us? Or the truth of these supposed dictates and teachings, by their agreement with the scriptures? The above concession appears to be in favour of the latter, and so to decide the question.

We readily admit that the Spirit of God is greater than the scriptures, as God is greater than the greatest of his works; and that by his renewing influence the mind is taught to know, what it would never form just conceptions of without it. This we consider as that anointing, of which the apostle speaks; by which believers are said to know all things.' But we do not perceive the propriety of calling this "a rule of faith and manners." The extraordinary revelations of the Spirit, such as those of David, concerning his pursuit of the Amalekites; and to Paul, respecting his going into Bithynia,-were indeed a rule to them, as much as a written revelation is to us. But it is very unsafe to reason from them to the ordinary teachings of the Holy Spirit, since the 'sealing up of the vision and prophecy.' The one was a revelation of new truths to the mind: the other enables us to discern the glory of that which is already revealed. The former sup